Fault

Three days back my family walked into the lift of our condo block to see a piece of paper stuck onto that space in the elevator where you normally would see the certificate of operatability. It looked like a laser color printed page with this picture.


I'm sure most of you have seen it. It's the latest in thing among kids, called the swave board. Very innovative I must say. But back to the notice. Here's roughly what it said:

Until a few days ago, my daughter was the proud owner of a swave board. I'm sure you have seen this, alot of kids have it. But my daughter found her swave board missing a few days ago. I do hope any parent will notice if their child brings back a swave board that isn't theirs, and I trust you will return it to the management office who will then pass it back to us. Yours sincerely one very annoyed parents and one very upset child!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

She (or he) did actually put about that amount of exclamation marks.

If someone pasted this in your lift, what would your reaction be?

If I had a pen with me I would have written somewhere on the page "That's entirely your own problem not ours".

I do think that this came from a Caucasian parent. I'm not saying that Caucasians are idiots, or that Chinese wouldn't do the same, but this is quite the nature of Caucasians, and should I say Asians naturally don't do this. Because really, how is it our fault if you didn't teach your kids to take care of their possessions, or if they just don't? What, you gonna leave your ATM PIN number in the open and put up notices suing the world for your loss of cash? How irresponsible is that? I don't think it matters if you are white or yellow skinned, I'm sure anyone who is even remotely educated can agree that no one else is going to take care of your stuff if you aren't bothered yourself (except for your parents maybe and they won't last forever), and certainly no one in his right mind will be willing to take responsibility for the loss of others' properties.

Sure, you can say it's their culture. But newsflash: you're in Singapore now, so act like it. Don't come act all high and bitchy on us and expect someone with eye slits a conical hat and goatee to grovel at your door saying "Hohhh we izu sorry muchu pleazu." I wiru smack you face bitsu.

Music and Dance

I sense a ramble coming on.

Just had the thought about how people constantly compare the good old days of music to the "trash of today". Classical aficionados frowned upon jazzing wailers, jazzing wailers frowned upon guitar-wielding rockers, guitar-wielding rockers frowned upon disco dancers, disco dancers frowned upon 90s poppers, 90s poppers frowned upon techno bobbers.

At this rate, I am almost certain of the day when our generation reminisces nostalgically about the "good old days of Crazy Frog".
"Tell me 'bout it, music never was the same after that age was it?"
"Everything sounds like a lightsaber battle nowadays."
"Fucked up."

The truth is, our lives are just really long photographs, exposed for 80 years to create the most amazing image ever seen. But a photograph is after all only a single capture of a particular time, whether it's 10 milliseconds or 10 decades. It won't move with the fourth dimension, and so similarly, to oversimplify it, it is very hard for us to do so as well. The speed of the advancement of technologies today has helped us get more used and be more open to constant (if rather irritating) changes in cultures, paradigms, norms and... well unnorms. But we will have to accept that because of the numerous influences we have been so deeply steeped in through our lives, there will be some changes that will unsettle us, even if it's only for awhile. And we also have to accept that just as we rebelled against our parents by secretly listening to rock, metal, techno, rap or R&B, future generations will be wholly convinced of their love of whatever trend comes up from the ground, and short of leaving our kids to slowly rot, we must try as much not to interfere with it, for who are we to say what is good art and what is not? And after all, how will you advance but by breaking boundaries and comfort zones?

Just don't play your crap on my expensive sound system. :)

Generation Zero

You probably know by now that for every NSF whose pay was supposed to come in at the stroke of midnight of the 10th of October 2009 did not get it until a (arguably) harrowing 18 hours later.

I woke up today to angry tweets and FB statuses. I was myself quite aptly pissed too - payroll is a clockwork procedure. Surely such a simple process can be easily automated. How the hell can such a huge screw up happen?

There are plenty of arguments and counter-arguments, but what I wish to discuss is this. If such a problem occurred to NSFs as little as 3 years ago, I don't think there would have been as much noise and panic. Everyone yesterday was broke and worried. There were some pretty strong reactions, to the tune of "how do you want us to give our lives in war when in peace you can't even get a simple payroll done on time", to "we stay and slog in camp so much and come out to find that we don't even have our pay on time for fuck", to "O MY HOW AM I GONNA PARTAAAAAY WHEN I HAVE NO MONAAAAAYYY".

But my fellow esteemed paid prisoners, let's back up abit now. Whatever happened to the concept savings? Contingencies? Reserves? Our lives are so planned by the hair of our income that when it doesn't come in smack on time, our lives are brought to a screeching halt, or worse, thrown right off the cliff. It seems to be common sense to everyone else except those in our years that we should save some money for situations such as this. Is this a trend we should start worrying about? Wait no scrap that, it shouldn't even be a question. This is a trend we should be worrying about. If this isn't immediately curbed, we could be facing a whole generation of loanshark-plagued young men. Let's not kid ourselves for one moment that when we get a "proper job" we'll get "decent pay" and won't comparatively spend that much. If you spend 95% of your income, you're spending 95% whether its 95 cents or $950. You are still leaving yourself with that same negligible margin to fall back on. While it's definitely arguable what a safe margin is, I'm quite willing to argue that 5% is nowhere near it, wherever it may be.

For starters, those of you with iPhones and iPod Touches can download this useful app. More than anything else it does the math and the logging for you - the onus is still greatly on you to key in every single transaction, deposit or withdrawal, to get an accurate track. If you can't find the right app for your device, you can always go back to the good old days of collecting receipts and entering them into an Excel spreadsheet when you get home. That I'll tell you from experience is even harder to keep up than having a balance sheet follow you around in your phone or iPod.

We cannot let this lifestyle attitude take over us. It will ruin our lives, our families, and quite possibly, our nation. Or even worse, foreign employees who know what they're doing will bear the weight of the Singaporean economy on their shoulders, and shift it around their way. If you have so much time to complain about foreign talent, then don't let them get your job.

Troublesome Touch

So if you don't already know, I got myself the latest 32GB iPod Touch. It was late by the time I got back, and I thought to myself, my word, I'm gonna have to stay up all night at this rate with the hundreds of apps I'm gonna fill my iPod with.

About 5min after plugging my iPod into my computer for the first time, realization hit me.

I don't know where to start on the App Store.

So I enlisted the help of some Touch-owning friends, chiefly Daniel because the rest said something to the effect of "Just download games lor." Thanks guys.

One thing I noticed though, is that without 3G or GPS, a huge huge number of apps are almost useless, unless you have some reliable WiFi. Which I don't in camp. I am really REALLY tempted to get M1's MiFi, except that it charges on Micro USB, and I don't wanna risk the people up there finding fault with a mini-to-micro USB converter cable. Plus it will cost me. But FINALLY. WIFI IN CAMP. I AM MY OWN MASTERRRRRR!

Here are some useful apps I've found so far.

If you don't already know, 1-Click Wireless@SG is a must have for Touch users, to ease the trouble of logging into WSG hotspots. Facebook and eBuddy are pretty standard apps too, but alternative mobile IM apps are Fring and Palringo.

The best guitar tuner you can find for free is the... well Guitar Tuner app. It only gives you the pitch of standard-tuned strings, but since there is no in-built mic in the Touch, there really isn't a point paying for chromatic tuners. Some of which are really good, by the way, if you have an iPhone. And while we're on the subject of guitars, the Planet Waves Chordmaster application looks to be one of the best chord guides you will find for free. The paid version will give you access to variable positions of the chords, but I think the free version is more than enough.

There's an app for possibly the most famous currency conversion site, XE.com, and it saves conversion rates so even without connectivity you can get a rough gauge of how much X costs in your local currency or vice versa.

The Holy Bible app by LifeChurch.tv looks to be the best with select downloadable versions and much more versions available subject to WiFi or 3G. And while we are on reading, here's the most useful app that I have discovered by myself so far.

Wattpad is an app for the e-book repository of the same name. There are classic and self-authored works there, and if you search hard enough, you might also find what you want.

Hint hint.

Video Converting for the Mac

Back when I was still on a Windows PC, the (in?)famous Super C (if you need me to point you to this link then you also need me to tell you that the download link is at the bottom of the page) converter solved all my video converting needs. It was old, it was clunky, and complicated, but to me, it represented a world of choices I guess even some of the best paid applications won't provide. And more importantly, it supported batch conversion, so that be it 2 files or 20, I could get the gears running with less than 10 mouse clicks, and go to sleep knowing everything will be nice and done in the morning (unless, you know, Windows crashes or something). And since then I'd always maintained that the ability to batch convert be one of the factors of my ideal video converter.

Thankfully, when I got onto my Mac, I was so busy making up for the time I'd lost in camp that video conversion was just about the last thing on my mind. Additionally I was getting really audiophilish, and the tracks in my Creative ZEN were mostly either MP3s at 320kbps, or WAVs at 1411kbps. You can just imagine the amount of space it took up, so that I had to be extremely picky about what music went into my player, much less videos. Later, I got my 16GB SDHC card, but the memory card expansion was so terrible on the Creative that I just gave up after awhile.

So now, after the 2009 Apple iPod keynote, I've gotten myself a 32GB iPod Touch! And yes in case you're wondering, it feels good to succumb to the dark side. Really really good.

We'll talk about that in another post.

It was after that that I started searching in earnest again for a good video converter for the Mac. But good unrestricted free software on Windows was hard to find, much less for Macs. By the way, I hear from my friends that they use Any Video Converter nowadays.

I did a Byte of the Week once with Tech65 on Handbrake, one of the leading free converters in the Mac world. And yes it's great, almost as great as Super. But it's missing my most important criterion.

Batch conversion.

Or rather, it's idea of batch conversion is adding files one by one by one configuring each conversion one by one by one, and then clicking the "Start Converting" button when you're done adding to the queue.

Seriously guys. WTF.

But no really. Other than that it's a great converting software. Probably the best.

Then I realise I've had it under my nose all along.

I have been using Vuze, or The Application Formerly Known as Azureus, for torrenting on my Mac. Sadly it seems that the best of these kind of free software are all cross-platform developments - both Vuze and Handbrake are such software. The best thing about the latest versions of Vuze is that you can format your files for sharing to other devices. Without Windows Media Center involved one inch, I have watched in amazement as full HD video streamed right out through my Xbox 360 (connected to my home network, as is my MBP) to my HDTV. Similarly, Vuze auto-converts videos to an Apple device of your choice, and copies it to iTunes after the conversion is done, where it will be ready for you to copy or sync with your device. If you are using a PS3, PSP, or TiVo, Vuze will also work for you. Best of all? Drag, drop, and select the device you want to format your videos for, and the rest will be done for you while you rest easy.

My only qualm about this converter is that all the settings are preset, with no noticeable option to change them. While this is best for the masses who aren't quite so familiar with conversion concepts and technologies, I find an audio bitrate of 64kbps appalling. It's like hearing people talk through a funnel. So if there was a file where I really wanted the audio quality preserved, or at least set at a compression I'm alright with, then I will use Handbrake for that one file. It has device presets too, so I for instance can click on the iPod Touch preset, then manually tweak the audio bitrate settings from there.

Alright, hope this helped.

Baybeats Day 3

Right, this will have to be plain text for now till Blogger wakes up it's idea. Or maybe my Mac. But I'm calling Blogger on this.

So my army mates and I went to catch the last day of Baybeats. I with another was quite heartbroken that we couldn't go on Friday because we already had our churascurra dinner, which meant we missed The Great Spy Experiment and West Grand Boulevard. Of course the only band I remotely knew on day 3 was Anberlin, and only because my friend wanted to go there specifically for them. Don't matter. I got their discography already. ^^

So we meet abit earlier to makan, and ended up... quite predictably when you're around guys, at Carl's Jr. SAFRA card saved the day, I ordered the new Western Bacon Thickburger, very nice if abit dry, and the discounted large upsize meal is still 45c cheaper than the normal undiscounted meal ($13.50, probably the most expensive burger on the list at the moment).

We originally wanted to catch Anberlin's acoustic set at 7, but we arrived quite on the dot, which meant that we couldn't even see the stage. I decided that we should give up watch it, and also because I just don't like this kind of music (hardcore) on acoustics. No, just no. It sounded awfully pop-rock, and the hundreds of girls singing along to every single word of the song didn't help lift that image. I herded my friends (we take turns leading the pack) to the venue dedicated to the heavier acts, the Outdoor Theatre, redubbed The Powerhouse for the festival.

The next band up was at 7.30, and a band that by pure virtue of its name attracted me - Velvette Vendetta from Hong Kong. We heard the sound check and we though 'Oh hell this is gonna be rockin.' We didn't know it would be that rocking - turned out to be metal. Not that it mattered to us, although things got quite steadily more cheesy as the set went on. The vox did that raspy metal voice and went "Dis is da Pawahaus, so I wanna see some fuckin pawahhhhh.' And his falsetto... dude go watch more BeeGees vids kay? Still, I thought they were ok. Their riffs were solid, and everyone was decently skilled.

Now I must confess we weren't very optimistic about the next band up, Singapore's Zero Sequence. We were sitting by the water and talking about what next. "Local band leh, don't feel like watching." "Yeah sia..." Still, we didn't come all the way down to a music festival to not see bands play, so we duly took our places up front sometime before the set was scheduled to start. We saw a whole rack of like 10 basses and guitars, and wondered whose it was, and whether it was Zero Sequence's (turned out to be Anberlin's). And I joked that it was just like a Singaporean band to have all this awesome equipment (the combined SRPs of the instruments might have gotten you a small car overseas) and shitty music. Zero Sequence started and because I didn't even have a clue that I was listening to a progressive rock band, I wondered what the hell they were doing (some atmospheric keyboard and tapping on the guitar that made some doobldy-duba-dana-dibi-dunun). And then the distortion kicked in and the blast that roared from the amps was so heavy my eyebrows went straight up. This dude came out in a Reaper costume, hooded, and shredded the shit out of his guitar, and unveiled himself and started singing. I was there, unable to clap because I was holding the Zoom H2 recorder reeling everything in, and all I could do was nod my head approvingly like some ambitious father, when the singer held a high note, and the power that suddenly resonated throughout the whole venue shocked the shit out of everyone, and my friend and I stared at each other stunned as the crowd started wooting appreciatively. And my otherwise great recording was nearly ruined by this CBK who tried to Superman on me and my friend. I think we shrugged him right off, but my recording got abit muffled after that.

Cheebye.

After the set was over, we immediately went to the CD booth and purchased their CD. I wanted to be a cheap bastard and kope the CD from my friend after he'd ripped it, but I decided to buy one myself in the end, and as I called for one more copy please, the guy turned around and pulled a stack out of a box, and taped to my copy of the CD was a guitar pick.

I dunno why my friends were so miffed. One's a bassist and the most musical thing the other one does is...... headbang. Or well, headbob. Lol I'm so bad. But SERIOUSLY!

We went to find our other friends at the chillout stage (no drums bass or distortion bleh) because our other group of friends were quite bewildered as to how one could even be attracted to such noise ("It's good noise kay!" I reasoned.)

Seems quite obvious but I think I'll mention for archive's sake that it had rained previously, just a couple of hours before the festival got into full swing in fact, and the result was that the grungy gravel/sand ground at the Powerhouse turned into a messy gravel/mud pit. And thanks to the fucking cocksters who just want to jump into the fray of moshing and push shove punch and kick anyone within arm's reach, our shoes were covered with a fine layer of mud by the time we reunited with our friends. Needless to say with crowds and typical SG weather it got humid, and we were quite happy to listen to ukeleles and soothing rings of acoustics while enjoying some aircon. It got clear though, that the artiste performing was the type that had a message to tell the world, and either had no lyrical artistry or didn't bother with it, with the result of quite a dry performance. So even the other guys who had ducked away from the noise joined us in going back to the Powerhouse to give The Ambassadors from the Phillipines a chance. They hung out right at the back while we moved up front, although we din get too far because we arrived just in time again. Being further away meant no close up shots of the band, but it meant that we got better (but louder) sound because we were within the speakers' targetted firing range.

Right well anyway, long story short, Ambassadors, sound like Switchfoot, pop-rockers obsessed with seeing people mosh in circles squares and pentafostigonals. I enjoyed it only because it was live. Atmosphere seriously lowers your standards. Although we had alot of fun watching would-be bodysurfers failing the crap out of themselves. They always get raised in the air by their friends, triumphant look on their faces (I'm floating muthafuckas!) and then the next moment nobody bothers catching them so they plunge right down into the crowd. Sad. Sad but funny. Should have videoed that shit.

Quite amazingly, a quite a big bunch of people made their way out of the venue after the band took their leave. I'd have though everyone would be kiasu and sit through a band they knew shit about just to wait for the famous band from halfway round the world. But we needn't have worried about that. The crowd really started coming in just then, and we found ourselves inevitably sandwiched. Having already experienced the crazy moshers earlier and fully expecting them later, we tried as much to move to the side without kicking ourselves out of the venue. At the end, we could have stood smack in the center for all we cared, because latecomers who couldn't get to the moshing area barrelled their way through anyway. About halfway through amidst the full blast of the speakers (we were sidelined right into direct range of the speakers) I heard my ears start ringing. I should mention for those who don't know that I have ears particularly sensitive to high pitches, which is why if you're the type to notice I always go for warmer sounding audio equipment. I quickly dug my Ultimate Ears out and plugged them on - I had absolutely forgotten to bring my concert earplugs in the typical rush out of the house.

So how was it then? I'm not one to belittle experiences, good or bad, so I'll say it was a great eye-opener being almost in the center of a mosh pit. I was tempted to the point of twitching arms to join in and push back, but seeing as that was utterly pointless in enjoying the music the most I did was dig into my position and not get shoved forward or back. I also found out that the moshers who subscribe to the kind of music that is Anberlin are royal idiots who just want to slap someone hard in the face without having to face repercussions. Metalhead moshers are a different thing - they follow the etiquettes set by the largest music festivals in the world. But this... I don't wanna say la, but you know the people. Miffs me abit that I'm also listening to the same music as them, but well, I'm not gonna ditch something I love because someone else is spoiling the image am I? So yeah, Baybeats was great, even though I only attended the last day. Hopefully Great Spy and West Grand will be back next year so I can see them live (still haven't got their CDs sia). And more importantly, hopefully my friends and I wouldn't have gotten too busy with work or studies to take time out to enjoy these precious moments of life.

Anyway, those bodysurfers. You surf surf 20m from your friends and finally land on earth again. Then? Headbang alone ah? Weird not eh?

Links and photos coming up, soon as Blogger sorts itself out.

The Spirit of Adventure

No I just borrowed the name. The Up post will have to wait. And YES O HAI I IZ BACK FROM HIATUZ I CAN HAZ PAGEVIEWZ?

I just thought I should blog about this fantastic evening. It's not actually fantastic, for the most part, but the absolutely positive feelings I'm floating about in right now just leads me to describe it as such.

It started when I was watching Pushing Daisies at 3.30pm. My aunt IMed and asked if I wanted to go out. I said yes I would like to go to Vivo, which is the nearest mall to my place, but I also had an almost unrelated itch to go there.

So alright we set 4.30 as the time to meet at the carpark downstairs (oh yes my aunt and my family have units in the same condo. Convenient, since we're practically stuck together since forever). While strolling over to her car I saw her walking in and out and around the car and was immediately hit with a very strong "Something's very wrong" aura. True enough, her car refused to start, but not just that, everytime she turned the ignition, a horrible rattle crackled out of her engine area, as if some metallic lizard got it's tail wound in the gears. And now we shall pause to fleetingly entertain that possibility.






Okay. Freaky wasn't it?

I smart-guessed that it wasn't a flat battery like my aunt thought. It had every indication of one - dim headlights and flickering dashboard - but the engine rattle somehow put that thought out of my head. So calls were made and we went upstairs to her unit and I did the usual IT support routine. Oh no I'm not resentful or tired of it. I actually like to be of use, sometimes. While I was watching abit of Bleach, the tow guy reached and she went down. I got a call soon instructing me to shut off everything, lock up and bring her purse down. The guy had come and deemed it to be an exhausted, and not flat battery, and simply jumpstarted the car back to life. He'd told my aunt that a slow drive to Vivo City should be sufficient to recharge it, a statement I quite rightly doubted when she told me, but if you threatened to slowly buzzsaw me in half from groin up you would end up having to do it because I don't know about car intestines for shit, so I just accepted it lor.

As we settled into our parking lot at Vivo I told my aunt we should try restarting it then to see whether it really worked, but she saw no point to it, and I quite strangely saw little point in pushing my suggestion. But it's probably better that we didn't do so, even though we should have, because I do think that if we have the result would not have allowed us to have as good an evening as what followed. Blissfully unbothered about the state of a car essentially brought back from the (temporary) dead, we headed straight for Akashi, a Japanese restaurant stuck in my head forever because when the first branch opened at Citylink my aunt ordered ootoro, the quintessentially Japanese fatty tuna belly, and brought the bill from what should have been just over a hundred to a ball-shrinking $300+.

Akashi did not open with the aim of being a budget restaurant for desperadoes to get their Jap fix, I'll say that first. I think it is just about the best upper-middle class restaurant to go to. It will not come cheap, but you won't walk away feeling unsatisfied. The salmon sashimi was 5 slices of centimetre-thick springy softness, its natural fresh taste amplified by soya sauce. The seaweed wrapping and fried skin of the salmon skin makimono (rolled-sliced sushi) was unbelievably crunchy. The broiled seabream head... well I can't speak much for it because it's not really to my taste, being cooked in sweet gingery sauce, but it was well-done, I can at least say. And the yaki-niku I ordered. Oh my frigediricking God.

Loads of onions, and not just to cover up for lack of beef strips, swimming in a huge load of sauce, with a side of shredded salad. Only in one other place have I had something as heavenly as this, and it wasn't in Japan. It was at SIM, at the Japanese stall before the fucking idiots calling themselves management did not renew their contract and they moved to who knows where (no it's not Akashi la. Close but different). And that was like what, $3.50. We paid about 20 bucks for this order, though granted it had good miso soup (always with that slightly burnt taste), watermelon, pickles, some black pepper salmon ball thingy, and rice. It was utterly fantastic re-living the wonderful memories I had with my friends eating that yakiniku.

I'm sentimental. Suck it.

After a completely satisfying meal (what did I tell you right) and copious amounts of burnt rice tea (the waitress, who like the rest of her colleagues was nice, knowledgeable, prompt, and most of all sincere, didn't get it when I asked for brown tea in Mandarin, but I realised shortly after that brown tea, or more correctly, Japanese tea with bits of burnt rice to give that lovely and kinda addictive nutty flavor, was their default tea. And that's saying alot because rice tea is rather expensive), sorry that was a long aside, our first stop was the Nat Geo store, which I can't help but think is much more of a museum than anything else. Honestly why would anyone by any sort of clothing from there at a very premium price? Well, insanely rich fans of Nat Geo maybe but is that really enough to sustain such a beautiful store? We proceeded from there to look for a thumbdrive and earphones. I'd only moments before recommended Sonic Gear Earpump to my aunt as we strolled through Best Denki when she mentioned she was looking for new earphones. It's what I've been recommending everybody asking me. Crossroads are still good but they're abit ex for the casual user and has an audiophilish kind of audio signature. Sonic Gear's signature suits modern music and ears accustomed to such music much better. Quite like vintage distortion versus modern distortion, my dear guitarist friends, whoever you may be. So my aunt got the Earpump Pro ($50) and I got the original Earpump ($30) for my mommy's upcoming birthday. Because really, there is a thin line between looking down on people's hearing and people who just aren't as bothered with hearing 2000Hz in all its resonating clarity as they are with comfort. A thin line, but one that definitely exists.

We then proceeded to the true aim of our hike across Vivo - Page One bookstore. Seeing nothing in the bestseller shelf (briefly tempted by the new novel from White Tiger author Aravind Adiga but I don't like hardcover. Anymore) I drifted to the magazine section to do my usual browse for gaming mags, but none of the relevant mags (which is to say only two or three) was interesting enough to make me pay $17, so I moved on down to the music section, from which I ended up picking two mags, one of which featured my second favorite guitarist Jimi Hendrix (first is Albert King) and the other of which featured Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck and "How THE YARDBIRDS changed rock forever", and both sporting juicy looking CDs, so after considering which one or the other to get I gave in to that nagging thought which essentially said "Fuck it get both." The CDs turned out to be just as juicy as they looked. Also, I floated down to the stationery section, and got myself a Uniball Jetstream Premier, a pen with promising ergonomics, excellent smoothness and a brilliant blue ink (and also a brilliant price tag of 10 bucks. Better work well and long dammit) when who should I meet but Singapore's favorite Hi There Kitty, Daphne! Just as I was about to make my mind up to pay, I was halted in my tracks by a beautiful hardcover book (I only don't like hardcover novels because I get so many of them) called The Advertising Concept Book, by Thames and Hudson. I was stuck for so long on whether to spend another $60 on it, until I went to look for my aunt who said "Don't, the price may go down later."

And so I saved myself 60 bucks. For now. And that's why you shouldn't shop alone. Try your best not to, at any rate.

We walk back to the car, time and money well spent, but not before I get myself a Coffee Bean Ulimate, which is essentially ice blended mocha on crack and a dash of speed. Try it sometime, but it's not for the caffeine-faint hearted.

"Well let's hope it works," my aunt said, turning the ignition.

Quite expectedly, the death rattle wasn't followed by a painful silence as my aunt swiftly swore. The next tow guy that came 40min later explained that it probably was a dead battery, but that new Borneo Motors cars can't just work on car-to-car jumping because the voltage was different and this to that may cause that to happen to this leading to that possibly making this that and that this an' cor blimey tha'll cost ye thousands, not hundreds, miss. I mean goodness how much shit can you come up with? I'm not calling bluff, I'm just saying why can't this world be a better place where everyone tells you the unshaded truth?

Oh I know. Because we're humans. 'Cause nothin' lasts forever in the cold November rain. Hard to be free as a bird now, these days. Honestly, everything you say to me takes me one step closer to the grave. And I'm about to break.

Good for you if you fully understood that. Or did you?

Anyway my aunt instructed him to tow the car away. Before that while we were waiting her iPhone ran low on battery, so she had to call... whoever again to change the contact number to mine.

So then we walk back up to take a cab back, but my aunt swears again after looking at the taxi queue. She must take cabs alot. Like, ALOT, because I take cabs half the time and I didn't even notice the atrocious queue at 11pm until she pointed it out, 75m away. So we change course for the bus stop, and my aunt didn't bring her EZ-link card and didn't have enough coins, but luckily I had just enough to combine with what she had (2 10c and 2 5c) to make $1.40.

And yes. SBS accepts 5c coins. How sweet.

On the way back I ask to see her iPhone because I've long suspected that the Maps uses cellular triangulation instead of GPS, and was wondering how to activate the GPS if possible. So I was playing around in her options, and was explaining to her about Internet tethering when...

We missed our bus stop. By two stops.

Luckily, the bus stops were near each other, so it wasn't that bad. My aunt was tired, but it felt like a carefree midnight stroll back to me.

And that is that. An evening that should have left me in emotions equating to the storm of the century but instead inspiring me to finally blog again with this long winded tale of misfortune. The moral of the story?

Always have jumper cables ready in your car. Always. You could be next.

Daring

I think this appeals specially to people educated in any form of psychology. And that includes people like me, a Communications student, who studied interpersonal interactions, body language, signs, among other things.

I read this from Seth Godin's blog, one of the few people I follow in order to build my knowledge in the communications, marketing and PR industries.

People have to be more thick-skinned, I think. I know I'm definitely not one. Yet. I don't even want to tell people when they're wrong, speak up when people need to hear, or shout when I have to. But look at the people watching guy #1. You can hear laughter in the recording. These same people who are amused by your insane ideas will be marvelling over your brilliance when it turns wildy popular. Either that or they'll be one of those bastards who go "Pfft I knew from the start, you mean you didn't?"

Seriously, this group of people, fuck you in advance kay?

Maybe I should start dancing at music festivals. Might give me more guts for my crazy ideas in the future.

Impempe Yomlingo

Last Saturday I went to watch the acclaimed African adaptation of Mozart's timeless opera The Magic Flute, otherwise known in snottier circles as Die Zauberflote.

It was unique, it was inventive, but I felt what made the production really shine was the vibrance and energy that seemed to radiate from these people naturally, as a cultural trait. Perhaps I'm ignorantly wrong, but it seems poignant that this radiance should be born out of a response to the sadness they have suffered all these years.

I should be looking for African music soon.

The Complete High Definition Xbox Experience

Many of my recent sighs have been due to this issue, and now that I've found the solution to it, I just thought that I should share it with everyone. I didn't discover it mind you, but I doubt enough people know about it.

Otherwise I would have. Hee.

Presently, the deal is this. If you want HD video and surround sound output from your Xbox, ie. the full home theatre gaming experience, you either use component cables to wire the video out to your HDTV, and the optical output to wire to your home theatre system, or you wire a HDMI cable into your home theatre, and HDMI out from your home theatre console to input video into the TV. The problem is, component cables do anything but give you HD quality video, the available cables only give stereo, and HDMI in/out home theatre amps/consoles are not cheap. At least 2k.

One thing about my father is that even though he is very thrifty, when he wants to get something that would contribute to either bringing the family together (the home theatre for example will sit everyone down for a good movie together), he can splurge amounts of money even I find amazing. So cost would probably not have been an issue. The issue with him was that he was adamant about not having cables run across our hall, an inevitability for the rear speakers if a complete wired system is used. Understandable, because it poses a very very great danger for wires or even conduits to be lying smack across the hall, which we freely cross to get to the balcony, or my parents' favorite ironing spot. But it nevertheless grates on my audiophile ears. Wireless, knn! All the amps I've seen supporting HDMI in/out are wired systems, and none of the wireless systems I've seen support HDMI in/out. Oh de pain.

Here's the thing, companies will be set fire to if they release a HDTV without HDMI inputs, and most home theatre systems north of $800 (USD600) will have an audio optical input.

As if by fate, searching up on Xbox optical cable led me to this Youtube video.



All this genius does is pry off the plastic casing surrounding the component/composite/audio/optical port (and also just quite incidentally blocking the HDMI port) and suddenly there is space to fit both in together. So now I have my HDMI video output and my 5.1 optical audio output. Not the neatest solution, but it's a hack, and I don't believe in keeping things neat when one hacks. My dad just purchased the Sony DAV-FZ900 sound system after I ran a torturing test on it at the Wisma Atria Sony store and grilled the assistant, who thankfully knew his stuff.

Can't wait!