Little Lines

I stumbled on this [Blog] earlier that told an interesting story. Never had a "gbv moment" with a friend (or, for that matter, any "pavement/rather-obscure-bands-that-i-like moment"). But I was kinda surprised back then that some of my poly mates listened to gbv. I think I'm the only person in this world who finds similarities between Cheer Chen and Guided By Voices' lyrics- Meaningful little lines. :)

吉他手

媽媽睡了

Vid of some fans' travel to YiLan to catch a Cheer Chen's concert. In a sorta "road-movie" spirit of the album and first song off the album- 旅行的意義 (Meaning of Travel)

2003 海洋音樂祭

Wrong

Sonic Youth- Paris 2006 Pt.1 Incinerate/Sleepin Around off latest album Rather Ripped

Sonic Youth- Pt.2 Do You Believe in Rapture?/Pink Steam
Sonic Youth- I Love You Golden Blue

Sonic Youth- Karen Revisited (Lee Ranaldo on vocals)

Sonic Youth- Death Valley '69


Wrong for the right reasons. Sonic Youth. The noise. Chaos. Fun. Death Valley '69. You can never go wrong with Sonic Youth.

Sound-track of my life.

Memories of Sonic Youth concert circa 1996 at WTC auditorium. Yeah, whenever I think back, still can't quite believe the concert ever happened. But SY were here in small Singapore. They were here! In 1996. Unbelievable eh? :o)

Clap Your Hands Shout Yeah

Found some great stuff on youtube every night. It's a treasure trove of rare vids. These are clips from a favourite band Spoon, an early Cat Power clip and the crazy new band, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. YEAH! :O

The Kims

There are 2 important Kims- Kim Gordon and Kim Deal.



This vid is truly special. The Breeders playing a GBV song and members of GBV skulking outside the house.

Hello Dayton, Ohio! Thanks YouTube.

Shocker in Gloomtown
Were you there?
Were you kicking?
Alive in aisle 12?
Give the girl a century
In boxes of jars
And give away cars
Hes motioning for you

There was a band
They were sickening
Arousing everyone
P.s. dump your boyfriend
Emotional trash
Emotional trash
With helium balloons

So then tell me
How the hell did we miss it
Bared his ass for all to see
And no one got to kiss it

Indulgence

For my indulgence...

piling it up

Ass-kicking

YLT- I am not afraid of you and I will beat your ass. - Get it! Nuff said.

now i can't wait for pavement's third reissue- Wowee Zowee: sordid sentinels edition in nov.

Happy Holidays

It's that time of the year again.

The Clang of bells. Gifts under the tree. Turkey.



My one christmas wish is yet to be fulfilled- I have not ran into any Moose on the road or came across such a creature outside the zoo. I just found out too that the headlights of a vehicle can blind a Moose 'cos their eyes are not accustomed to that blinding glare. So folks, please dim your vehicles' headlights when you are driving in the night and expecting to run into a moose. The poor creature isn't equipped with a car horn...

This Christmas also serves to remind us of the grim event of last year.

I also just found out from Bluesnews that the actress who played Mrs. Martini in Frank Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life", Argentina Brunetti, passed away recently on 20 December at the old age of 98. She had written a book and done many cool stuff in her life. Near the end of her life, she became a passionate blogger and made this blog- AB's Hollywood Stories relating events in Hollywood. She was dubbed "Web's oldest blogger". If you check out the blog at ArgentinaBrunetti.com, you can see that she is as much a movie fan, as a movie actress. She took pictures with virtually every actor/actress out there! :/

Like a yearly ritual, I try to watch that ol' classic film on Christmas day when I can.

Wishing everyone Happy Holidays.

Cheer - Adventure

Cheer Chen's new album titled "Adventure" is out. Do check it out.



Found out too late that she'll be here on Nov 19 for a concert at the NTUC auditorium. The 500 or so tickets were sold out. :(

Section of cheer chen's blog off a jap fan site- http://cheer-chen.jp

這幾天密集通告真的吃不消了

想想這三年的輕鬆度日好似浦島太郎遊龍宮
結束剛剛電視節目?影才驚覺好似回到人間已過三百年

明天要早起

畢竟是這十幾天唯一一次也是不得不的一次
好好享用一頓早餐

晩安上海

狂風暴雨的上海
請讓我安然回到我的家

那才是能讓我出發到世界的起點

-綺貞, 2005/8/7上午 03:17:38

---

Quite taken in by this malkmus song on his new album. In my head all day -

Stephen Malkmus - Freeze the Saints

We meet again
Riding our divisible bodies
Feel no shame
Luck is love is on

If you need the pain
Well you are, yes you are so much like me
Seasons change--nothing lasts for long
Except the earth and the mountains
So learn to sing along and languish here
Help me languish here

It was long ago
That all of your willing dimensions
Lost the flow
And vanished in vaneer

But I want to know
If you are, yes you are so much like me
Steel restraints
Zodiac ballet, everybody play
There's no more counting days, you languish here
Help me languish here

You said, "done is good,"
But done well is so much fucking better
Share the wealth
And cauterize the tears

If you want to know
Well you are, yes you are so much like me
Freeze the saints
Such a subtle read, exquisite pedigree
Just let yourself be and languish here
Help me languish here

This is, imo, a good review of Face The Truth.

Some Days

Some days, one wishes that everything could be as simple as when Guo Jin first met Huang Rong, and he knew instantly that he loved her. Alas, that is not the case usually.

Searchin' for my Polestar

This small, excellent japanese series "Searchin' for my Polestar" (Tentai Kanzoku or 天体観測)- follows a group of 7 friends, how life changed for each of them, 3 years after they graduated from the uni. It is showing again on Channel U on the weekends.


(from japan.videoland.com.tw)

Starring Koyuki (小雪)- most will remember her role with Tom Cruise in "The Last Samurai". Great actress- must say her performance and that other Japanese dude's stole the show from Tom Cruise in that movie.


(from jdorama.com)

Features some great soundtrack by Bump of Chicken and Mika Nakashima. Am trying to find that theme song.

Quotable quotes-

When Kyoichi started the astronomy society in school- "An individual may not be able to find that certain star in the sky. But with a big group of us, it's easier to see that star."

"Each of us is a boat. That can only hold one person. When we see a person struggling in the waters, sometimes we can't do anything but helplessly watch him drown. But we are boats with the ability to sail major oceans. And when we group our tiny boats together, we can ride thru the most maniacal storms. Each of us is a boat. That can only hold one person..."

Baby, C'mon

Been a while. And I bring to you an incredibly fun song by Stephen Malkmus, former frontman Pavement. "Baby C'mon" from recently released album "Face the Truth".

Click here to Download (from official Matador Records site)



Baby, C'mon

With a thousand tiny terrors
No more weekend shares
Make it get away
Baby come on

If you give it to me timmy
I'm out here on a limb-y
I don't need hideaways
Baby come on

well, half-way through my life
I flipped on internal bitch so
Tell it to me straight
Baby come on

And i know that the shapes are great
So i won't hesitate
To leave it at the door
Baby come on

I see you're under my diamond
I see you driving the winter shell

So you say that you're too old to yell
But too young for hell
It's not far away
Baby come on

If a life of tears cuts you down
You can sit around
I won't make you stay
Baby, come on

I see your lovely traffic pose
I see you're trailing what you're good for

Baby come on
Baby come on
Baby come on
Baby come on, let me come

Baby come on
Baby come on
Baby come on



"Well half way thru my life, I flipped on internal bitch so"
hurhur great stuff.

special treats- folks may wanna check these out-

S.M. on KCRW show 'Morning Becomes Eclectic'
(S.M. on acoustic guitar :p)
(from KCRW website)

Concert recording on CBC radio3 website. Search for Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks.

all malkmus' weekend. hoho.

Random Sightings

Do you know this movie- Serendipity (2001)? (Got the spelling right?) Starring John Cusack etc etc. Nothing amazing about it. In fact, I didn't like the cast or plot of the film. Parts of the film are funny but that's about it. It's along the line of movies such as Annie Hall, Sleepless In Seattle, When Harry Met Sally. What is strange is that I always happen to catch it when it's showing. Caught the movie when it was first shown in the cinemas here. A friend had spare tickets. Subsequently, I managed to watch the movie or parts of it on TV on various occasions/locations. So, this, now, is like the 5th or 6th time I've seen it. And the film is really about mad coincidences. I blame it on the repetitive program schedules of cable tv.

Anyway, I decided to note down some details of the film on this 6th outing.

Sightings in the movie-

A book titled Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Strictly for the hopelessly romantic. Either this book or some other won the author the Nobel Prize.

The star system Cassiopeia. Had to look up the spelling for this one. Yeah, I know how to spell it now.

The movie Bridges of Madison County was mentioned.

The ice-skating rink in Rockefeller Center, Central Park, NY.

Waldorf-Astoria hotel. Bloomingdale's.

Fatum means Fate, Destiny or Doom, in Latin.

That Nick Drake's song.

---

In other news, I just got my first phat lewt (epic), after what, 5 months of WoW?

Phat Lewt

My Skewed Lenses

I wanna talk about how infectious Cheer Chen's songs can be. Watched the mtv "Jiu3 Feng4 De4 Ka1 Fei1 Dian4" (Coffeeshop at Jiu3 Feng4). Can't get it outta my head.

Wanna visit Jiu3 Feng4 九份, Taiwan. But I don't know. Has 九份 changed?

I wanna call this friend who seemed to have disappeared.

Wanna mention the anime Full Metal Alchemist. The fundamental law of Alchemy, one of the ideologies the anime is based on- "You reap what you sow." You can only gain what you put in/gave up. Most things can be summed up with a constant. Life can be so simple. The equations we learnt in Chem class.

Wanna catch Hou Hsiao Hsien's films at the film fest. Talk about his early films. Film Fest's starting today.

Talked to a friend on internet yesterday on Warcraft3 strategies. Felt like I could go on talking for the entire day on this same topic. Kinda brought me back to old poly "Mud" days- where the buncha us geeks would hang out after school to mud till the comp lab closes, we'd then head down to the Mac at nearby King's Cross Ave? to discuss the adventures we had that day. Whereby the menu for the next day could be to slay so-and-so Dragon. Fun times.

I wanna know someone who has read Mallory's LeMorte D'Arthur. Read the funny version The Once and Future King by T.H. White. To tell me the details. It was, really, pretty sad at the end.

My hard-disk is dying. Making strange grinding noises. Recorded a single 4kb bad sector. GG. Thanks for the good times.

To talk about this french film I watched recently- Jeux d'enfants (2003 (Child's Game/Love me if you dare). I kinda enjoyed it. But yeah, looking at the reviews- you either like it or hate it. Great first-time effort by the director imo. Learnt that popular song in the film is titled La vie en Rose.

Wanna talk about these things and more.

Glanced thru some other blogs of friends/folks I don't know.

Sometimes, what we chose to put up on a blog, tells more about us, than the content that was written. These choices, the "How" and "Why" (we decided to post certain stuff) occasionally tells more about a person than the content itself. The content at times didn't matter. Other times, it did. Silly idea I thought up.

---

Random (or not so random) Quote of the Day -

"What if God was one of us?
Just a slob like one of us
Just a stranger on the bus
Trying to make his way home
Just trying to make his way home
Back up to Heaven all alone
Nobody callin' on the phone
cept for the Pope maybe in Rome" -Joan Osborne.

---

陈绮贞 - 妈妈睡了

妈妈睡了

歌手:陈绮贞 专辑:收藏陈绮贞(最新创作

被罚跪的下午
"为了什么被惩罚呢"
从小的恶习到现在还是改不掉
"到底为了什么被惩罚呢"
总是会很轻松的被忘掉
用跪在地上的膝盖
慢慢的慢慢的在绿色的地毯上移动
绿色的地毯"是绿色还是黄色呢"
"到底是绿色还是黄色"
错误的童年记忆对智能没有损伤
"妈妈睡了吗"
为什么窗外这样大的太阳
怎么
样都睡不着的我
无聊的在床的四周用膝盖走来走去
妈妈却还睡的如此深沉呢
我偷偷摸了一下妈妈的鼻息
看到妈妈薄薄的眼皮突然动了一下
我很快的将手收回来
"呼"松了一口气
嗯妈妈睡了
我很安心
悄悄的从抽屉拿出可以换衣服的纸娃娃
一边罚跪一边玩了起来
红裙子白上衣棉被真厚冷气好大声
妈妈可不可以不要变老
漂亮的妈妈不会老
真的喔
午睡结束的时候
妈妈和我都笑嘻嘻
没有人记得我为什么被惩罚的下午
在太阳下山的时候溜过去

"While her mom slept, she felt under her nose to feel her breathing. Mom's shut eyelids twitched a little. Retrieved her hand. She felt relieved..."

陈绮贞 - 九份的咖啡店

九份的咖啡店

歌手:陈绮贞 专辑:收藏陈绮贞最新创作

这里的景色像你变幻莫测
这样的午后我坐在九份的马路边
这里的空气很新鲜
这里的感觉很特别
仰望这片天空
遥尽我对你的思念
窗外的星空像你嬉笑不眠
这样的午夜我坐在九份的咖啡店
这里的街道有点改变
这里的人群喧闹整夜
望着朦胧的海岸线
是否还能回到从前
昨日的单纯今天的实际像你
而你也早已不是你
我的心是一杯调和过的咖啡
怀念着往日淡薄的青草味
窗外的景色像你没什么道理
这样的午后我在忠孝东路的咖啡店
这里的街道有点危险
这里的人群面无表情
想问你也问问自己
是否还会记得从前
怀念着往日的坚持和现在你我的改变

SIFF 2005

Been a while since I updated here. :)

Yeah, the Film Fest is here again. And guess what they have for this year's opening film? An anime- Steamboy! Closing film is another anime- Ghost in the Shell 2. Kudos to the organisers (Phillip Cheah and gang). Kinda tempted to catch the opening film despite the hefty ticket price.


Steamboy

If you found the art familiar, it's done by none other than the makers of Akira. Yeah been a long time coming. Like a decade in the making of the film too.

Do check it out at the film fest website:

Singapore Int' Film Fest '05

Starting on the 14th of April, tickets are on sale now (online/Sistic). Ok, will do a follow-up on the films I'll be watching soon.

Seasons Greetings

What I've been up to-


Me and Jaina


Me and Tyrande (Priestess of the Moon)


Me and Santa


Me and Tocc (Friend who became a snowman)


Yay

Merry Christmas all.

Ed/Turkey Day

Like most of the other good stuff, they're all set to can this one.

Between watching the series, Ed, on tv and anticipating to play WoW, I'd say life is pretty alright.

Ed- mainly because it has some of that Northern Exposure feel to it and it features a bowling alley...

Also, it's Thanksgivings. And Christmas is a month away. Not that the day will be any different for me, just nice to see most everyone in a festive mood and feeling generally happy about it.

Christmas reminds me of this...



And this...



Just the fact that it always seemed to be snowing in Cicely. :/

I want to see Morty (or any moose) out in the wild, in a field of white snow. On Christmas day. And then I will die a peaceful man. lol

Feeling all nostalgic about NX/Morty the Moose/the emotional weather reports all of a sudden. Think about it, there's a fella named Ed in NX too. Hmm.

Roflcopter2

WoW open beta came to a close yesterday. I had several screenshots I wanted to show(including this really nice one of an Infernal lunging at my little gnome), but I needed some hdd space so I uninstalled WoW, foolishly, along with the screenshots. :P Well, too bad I guess. Final moments before the servers came down, the GMs (gamemasters) spawned several huge mobs that rampaged the city of Stormwind and other major cities, killing many folks and turning several others into chickens. One of these mobs was a Dreadlord and his fucking cool, massive Infernal.

Let's just say, the beta experience was good. I haven't played Everquest 2 so I can't compare the two. But I think I will enjoy WoW for 3 months at least, given the fact that I haven't experienced the higher levels' content and it usually takes about 3 months to get to those content. I won't elaborate on what is good with the game since everyone already know most of it. Maybe I'll just summarize the goodness with one word- Quests. :) Also had a ball of a time being part of this raid with some 30 folks on the final day. Our alliance raid-group tried to invade the goblin town of Ratchet. Kinda brought back memories of ol' DAoC's RvR action. However, like the problem with DAoC, there's a visible lack of incentive to PvP and PvP content in general in WoW. (We won't see the much touted Honor system and Battlegrounds, both important PvP content, in the release) DAoC's RvR didn't really do it for me the last time either. I prefer small, concentrated skirmishes to messy large-scale battles so I hope WoW will provide venues for small skirmishes in future.

The first and only 'Instance' raid I joined a couple days ago was pretty fun too. It was known as the VanCleef raid. Had to pass thru meandering caves/mines/mini-bosses to finally arrive at a pirate ship. We weren't a full group (there were 4 of us- 2 warlocks, a lvl30 paladin and me, a rogue) but we eventually beat the instance. Took about 3 to 4 hours. It was pretty tough and intense, and we were in fact beaten on several occasions. But warlocks have the ability to create these Soulstones (which enable a person to self-resurrect) every 30mins. Our more experienced paladin was amply supplied with these and coupled with his personal ability to heal and resurrect, we managed to pull through.

Anyway, 5 days till release. Pretty much at a loss on how I should spend my evenings till then. Half-life 2, anyone? Hyak hyak.

---

A Different Opinion

Beta Writeup: World of Warcraft [2:Margalis]

This one offered a rather critical preview/write-up of WoW, from the pov of Margalis on Waterthread.

This is like the cumulation of all the main faults with WoW. I'll like to add another- that is the lack of PvP content. You know, like when you just started out in DAoC, you had a vague idea what RvR is about, but somehow you felt there's something missing from the whole idea (esp. after you'd gone on the first Keep Raid, like there's a lack of incentive to RvR in the whole thing... ), there is a similar 'something' missing from WoW's PvP. But nothing that a good PvP patch can't fix, except that they better not let us wait too long for the patch, like the trillion years it took for the Daoc Frontier patch to occur.

I didn't agree with everything in the writeup. If, after reading this, you still find the game to be sufficiently fun (like I do), then go ahead, buy and try out the game. /plug

WoWee zowee

Big games. Small games. They're all coming. To a store near you this holiday season.

Downloading WOW (World of Warcraft) Open Beta at the moment. 78%. Crawling. Grr.

Gonna play an Orc Combat Rogue or something maybe.

Feel the wrath yet? the Triple Backstab + Poison + Critical Pain? :) Haha.

Stay tuned for preview of the game soon.

All I want for X'mas

Are many many Compact Discs.

"COOOOKIES!! MUNCH MUNCH MUNCH!!" :O

PC Games:

• Everquest2
  
• World of Warcraft
  
• Vampires: Bloodline
  
• Half-life 2
  
• Sid Meiers' Pirates!

Music CDs:

• Pavement: Crooked Rain Crooked Rain: LA's Desert Origins
  
• Pavement: Slow Century DVD
  
• Brian Wilson: Smile
  
• Elliot Smith's final album: From a Basement on the Hill
  
• Guided by Voices: Half Smiles of the Decomposed
  
• Bjork: Medulla
  
• THE CLASH: London Calling 25th Anniv Edition
  
• Pinback: Summer in Abbaddon
  
• Pixies: Waves of Mutilation: The Best of the Pixies

And maybe an It's a Wonderful Life DVD to watch on that day. List goes on.

---

Cheer Chen's Travel Story

Cheer's homemade video

At the end of the vid., I was reminded of something a friend, Warren, exclaimed a long time ago, "It's all about the clouds. It's all about the clouds." :P

---

Random Quote of the Day:

"They'll yell something like, "commie," or "pacifist" but then flee when they find out you are neither, especially the latter."
- Jim Jones

WayAbvPar on Waterthread pointed this out in Jim Jones' article, Getting Testy in Florida. "A Marine Corps vet tells some tales of confrontation from the front lines of the get-out-the-vote effort (for Kerry) in Tampa, Florida."

Thought it's fairly funny. /shrug :)

Any Comments?

Btw, just installed this Haloscan commenting tool. Kinda fancied the crazy ads the comment tool randomly spurts out on Shey's site. So I thought I must have that. :) Took all of about a minute to install too. Check out this current ad:

Lesbian Misbehavin'
I'd SPANK George W -- if he was my type.

Froth Slosh B'Gosh
Somewhat liberal, Pittsburgh based blog

Haha.