June 2004 Archives

How many Singaporean readers were hit by yesterday night's blackouts?

I was in the middle of redesigning vantan.org and had just hit upon the right colour combination and layout.... BEFORE I got to save the page. I suddenly found myself thrown in pitch darkness.

My immediate reaction wasn't something like, "Oh no! I'm scared!" but more along the lines of, "Shoot, I should have saved! Dammit!"

Anyway. Almost immediately, VanPod lit up in its dock right in front of me. Saved by the 'Pod! After setting its backlight to permanently on, it shone brightly enough for me to locate the torchlight in another room.

My bible study mates and I had a glorious time camping at Sentosa over the weekend and playing with their kids on the beach. My shoulders, however, now resemble that of a lobster's because I neglected to apply sun block all the way up my arm. Duh.

The last time I camped at an island in Singapore was back in '93 at Pulau Ubin. Despite every attempt to drown my skin with repellent, I acquired 50 mosquito bites all over my body (yes, I counted the bites on every limb and that was exactly it).

So on Saturday night I said a little prayer before I went to sleep, and didn't get bitten at all! Hallelujah.

Wish I prayed about sunburn too. My skin feels like it's about to erupt in blisters at any moment.

(*now praying for healing*)

Muddy patches? Bad refereeing? I'll throw another conspiracy theory into the works: David Beckham may not realise it, but his teams' (England, Real Madrid) recent poor performances could be for more personal reasons than you think.

You see, back in Manchester United, he was still with a woman called Victoria. That's why they kept on winning.

Then when he left for Spain, he ended up with a woman called Loos.

And as for the slips on pitch? Well, he is the skipper after all...

I bought a G5.

With a 20 inch screen.

2 Ghz dual processors, 512MB RAM.

Couldn't resist the wireless keyboard and mouse.

Airport and Bluetooth, too.

(Thank God for instalments.)

Delivery in 1-2 weeks' time.

Electronic musicians out there: Which is 'best', Cubase, Pro Tools, Logic? Or something else I haven't heard of?

Better in the sense that it can meet my growing needs for a more professional setup. I want to be able to edit my tracks in greater detail than what my Triton is capable of doing on its touch screen.

I'd like to do all my mixing on the computer (the G5 I am going to get) because it is much more convenient.

I'd like something that can score my music as well, so other band members can play what I've written. I know Sibelius can do that, but it would be good if I didn't have to purchase any more costly third-party software. If there is a plugin I can install, that would be great.

I have gone as far as to compile a list of musicians's software preferences. Some entries are based on forums' hearsay and assumptions. Contributions and amendments welcome.

Cubase

• Stuart Matthewman (Sade)
• St Germain
• U2
• Martin Solveig (DJ)

Pro Tools

• Andrew Hale (Sade keyboardist)
• Bjork - this is a pretty big pull factor, seeing how she does a lot of grunt work herself. Respect!
• Massive Attack - full Digidesign Pro Tool setup, with four Macs, according to this article.
• Talvin Singh
• Portishead, possibly

Logic

• Jamiroquai (recently switched to this)
• Depeche Mode
• Enigma

A mix of software

• Hans Zimmer uses both Cubase (for MIDI arrangements) and Pro Tools (audio)
• Basement Jaax may have used all three.

I'm trying to find out what EBTG's Ben Watt is using.

Lots of people have been discussing which software to use, but have yet to reach a definite conclusion.

Lastly, I know good ideas count more than whatever software we use. But if I can help it, I'd like to start off with the best possible system my money can buy.

[Update: A good discussion and review on various music sequencers.]

Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi, who suffered heavy vote losses, now alleges election fraud.

The Italian football team, trailing in their Euro 2004 group, allege a Nordic conspiracy.

I am officially withdrawing my support for Italy (the football team). They're a bunch of spoilt brats who have been underperforming and blaming everyone but themselves.

However, there is one Italian I still like. The referee Pierluigi Collina. The English are even giving him an honorary doctorate.

Remember the problem I had with hard disk space? I tested out a theory today and it solved my problem.

Since my iPod (hereafter known as VanPod) also serves as a spare hard drive, why not reassign my iTunes music folder on my PC, to a directory in VanPod itself?

So I copied all my music files from my PC to a folder in VanPod. I reconfigured my iTunes settings. At first, nothing seemed to register. I exited iTunes and started it again. Voila!

Now when I rip my CDs, the music files get stored directly and immediately onto the 'hard drive' section of the iPod. These files can be restored to a computer (when I get a bigger hard drive). The files are then synchronised with the 'music playing' section of the iPod, which I heard is copy-protected(?).

Basically, it's like shaking hands with yourself.

However that does mean I have reduced VanPod's capacity to 50% since these files are duplicated. I seriously doubt I have that many CDs left to rip, though. And hopefully by the time I do, I'd be on a new G5 Mac anyway (yes I have decided to Switch, after the house is rebuilt).

Sometime, somewhere, someone's going to write about interdisciplinary approaches to solving life's complex problems if they haven't already.

One good example would be what I experienced today, while deciding on the layout for our new kitchen. Budgetary issues aside, we made modifications and decisions using a mix of common sense, experience and ... some old web design know-how.

After running an errand at the mall, I visited my favourite CD shop with a mind to reserve certain albums (namely Jamiroquai's Late Night Tales, and new albums from Zero 7 and Sweetback). I hadn't been to the shop in a few months but two of the salespeople recognised me.

I decided to pick up an acid jazz / house compilation album.

The salesgirl / cashier told me how much I had to pay, with members' discount. Then I realised I hadn't given her my card yet. I know they usually keep tabs on membership numbers.

"No need," she smiled. "I remember your number." And she recited it to me.

I was stunned because I didn't even know my own number. I opened my wallet, took out the card and looked at it.

By Jove, she was right. I felt like Imelda Marcos in a shoe shop!

I just hope they don't do the same thing with my credit card...

If you're a fan of Sweetback (the band making up Sade, without the singer) you may be pleased to hear that they're launching their second album, Stage 2, on 22 June 2004.

One of their guest vocalists for this album intrigues me. Aya was born in Singapore, moved to London (a la Vanessa-Mae?) and met Stuart Matthewman in New York. The rest, you may say, is history.

From the samples on the website, my favourite picks would be 'Lover' and the slightly electronica-esque 'Mountain', both sung by Aya. If she follows in the footsteps of another female Sweetback guest vocalist, Amel Larrieux, and lands her own recording deal, she will have a bright future [self-correction: She's already with a label, Naked Music]. You could almost fall for her in the music video for 'Lover'. I felt it was better than the shoot for 'Things You'll Never Know', which has pleasing sounds but no strong melody hook.

Sweetback's first album featured another of my most favourite singers, the suave Maxwell. In this second album the 'equivalent' male vocalist is Chocolate Genius, who packs in more raspy power in place of smoothness.

I haven't heard all the tracks, but so far nothing sounds as impactful as their first album's hit, "You Will Rise", sung by Larrieux. Yet this second album is probably good enough for me anyway.

In the words of Matthewman, Stage 2 is: 'No category, no format, no preconception, no style, no continuity, no formula, no description, no comparison, no label, no barriers, no rules, no age, no colour, no nationality, no leader, no competition, and last but not least, no apology!'

[Update: You can listen to all tracks from the first and second albums, on Sweetback's UK site. ]

After looking at Six Apart's new licensing scheme for Movable Type, I don't think we have much to complain about any more. No recurring licensing fees. Create as many blogs as you want. Direct support from Sixapart.

Naturally, those who have always wanted good things for free, can turn to alternative services and software. However, considering that blogging is a hobby to many of us, and that some hobbyists spend a lot more money on their toys than we do on our blogs, it isn't such a bad deal. I think I might take it up.

I can't wait to see what new features they're releasing in the next couple of months.

I was a little confused when I read this BBC report on the France v Croatia (2-2) match.

The summary/highlights section says: "23 mins: Zidane's free-kick is deflected into his own net by Tudor".

That sounded like another goal for the Croatians, when actually the full match report says: "Igor Tudor deflected a Zinedine Zidane free-kick into his own net." (To the totally uninitiated, Tudor is from Croatia; Zidane from France.)

Here ends my little nit-picking episode.

Update: I wrote a note to BBC Interactive and they actually replied, fixing the error!

BBCi's reply

Thank you for your message and interest in BBC Sport Interactive.

I have forwarded your message to the subbing desk for this to be looked into.

The phrase now reads: "Zidane swings in a free-kick from the left and the ball deflects off Croatia defender Tudor and into the net."

There. Zizou has been vindicated :-P

Thanks to Kristen, who granted me one of my geek wishes by getting me a Gmail account! I'd shout "Yahoo!" except that it would be entirely inappropriate :)

What a bad day it was for England. First, they lost 36-3 to the Allblacks in rugby. Then their football team lost 2-1 to France in the last three minutes. Even in the lift today, I heard some Englishmen still talking about it.

Believe it or not, while I was studying in England I was not a big football fan. The closest I got to it was learning, in a Tort case, of the tragic accident at Hillsborough stadium where many Liverpool fans were crushed and killed. Bless their souls.

However, I didn't waste all three years being ignorant in the country which invented the game. The first big soccer match I recall seeing was during the 1998 World Cup one fine summer day. I watched it in a pub in Bath with two friends and the atmosphere was tremendous. The place was packed; we scampered from pub to pub looking for ample butt-room.

Eventually we found one that actually had a square metre of sitting space. I think we had some beer, I really can't remember (which probably means we did have some beer).

In full football revelry, every stranger was a friend, and all around us were painted faces shouting, ENG-ER-LAND! ENG-ER-LAND!! The lads beat Tunisia 2-0.

The next England match I watched back in Bristol, methinks, and that was the one against Argentina. I won't harp on history any further, since some of you England fans are probably still smarting from the mark of Zizou.

Based on my predictions for all Euro 2004 matches (using the BBC's Flash-based match predictor), there is a good chance that France and England, assuming they beat Switzerland and Croatia, may play each other again in the finals. Sounds like the old Brazil-Turkey World Cup 2002 showdown, eh?

Last snippet of news: Mikael Silvestre, French defender, reveals exactly how goalkeeper Fabien Barthez saved David Beckham's penalty kick:

"We had a look at all the penalties he took and he was always taking them this way," said Silvestre after France's last-gasp 2-1 win.

"So Fabien did a good job. He went to his right and it was a great save."

Yaawn. How boringly predictable ...

Update: Sweden v Bulgaria coming up. I favour a certain CK model with piercing blue eyes ;-)

Update 2: Wow! Sweden 5, Bulgaria 0. What a thrashing! Freddie scored first... And at the rate Italy is going, there is no way they are going to make it to the finals. I wasted 90 minutes of sleep watching them draw 0-0 with Denmark.

I will be very quiet for the next few weeks. Shh!

Because I've been hit with Euro fever! Not the Parliamentary elections. Not currency trading. And most certainly not Eurotrash. I'm talking about football, baby.

Check out this really cool 3D match replay from the BBC. Shockwave required. However, be warned. It caused Firefox to crash. I had to view it in Internet Explorer (sob).

My favourite teams? I shall be predictably mainstream (but honest) and say this time it's France (since Turkey didn't qualify). However I suspect the French to draw with England in a few hours' time because both teams are very evenly matched. My next favourite team is Italy. But football being football, you can expect to be surprised by a dark horse...

Portugal were disappointingly mediocre. If Cristiano Ronaldo hadn't joined in, the scoreline would've been 0-1 not 1-2. Prior to the competition, I had honestly never heard of any of the Greek players but they did an amazing job defending their goal. If they keep at it, I will not be surprised to see Greece make it to the second round, together with Spain.

For fellow sleep-deprived Singaporeans, here's the full programme schedule.

Nap time!!!

An excellent document on Web Standards from 456 Berea Street.

Take the Web Standards - Who Cares Anyway? survey.

Can you make a guess?

I have spent the past few months immersing myself in the following themes of the moment: loving brother-sister incest, the second world war, female teachers having sex with male pupils, staying with the man who makes you happy rather than promises hot sex, people "as old as the century", male narrators, armageddon and people who change their lives completely before ending up exactly where they started.

Essential reading? Obviously, um, uh, I mean, if you—I don't know if you're picking ten books or five books or whatever, but I happen to believe—a lot of people don't—you ought to read the Bible. People might pick up the Koran or the Torah or whatever, obviously, depending on your religion, but I think a religious foundation—I personally think—is important, whether it's Confucianism or Hinduism or whatever it is.

Bush should have died, not Reagan.

Read on for the answers.

For the new house, I was planning to set up a wireless home network.

Separately, I was also thinking of getting a new sound system to play tunes on my iPod.

But this may just change the way I think.

My cousin recently discovered a pic of me and some family members, dressed in our Peranakan best, on a stranger's website. The photo was taken off an old blog entry of mine.

(No no no, we still had our clothes on, and I didn't get my face Photoshopped onto some Playboy bunny's body.)

While I was glad that someone's created a website on Peranakan culture, I was quite shocked that one of my personal photos was used without my knowledge and permission. I was even more unhappy because my aunts, sister and grandmother were also in the photo.

I think if this person had the decency to have asked me first, I wouldn't have minded so much. I do have a Creative Commons Licence, you know, and it isn't too restrictive. You just have to ask!!!

I have half a mind to write in and firmly remind this chap to have some Netiquette. I appreciate my photo being used to promote my heritage, and it doesn't look like a commercial site. But ... ugh. I feel cheapened! (This is the page in question.) I wonder if other photos on that website were also taken from other people's personal collections.

Some common sense guidelines to follow:

1. If you saw something you like on someone's website, and there is a copyright notice, follow it.
2. If there isn't an obvious notice, it is better to ask anyway. You might have missed the fine print.

Simple enough??

Many people didn't expect the unseeded Gaston Gaudio to clinch the French Open title. I said they should look back to Wimbledon 2001, when another guy I was rooting for, Goran Ivanisevic, decided not to become second best again. Ah, if I were a betting woman...

Now, who would've thought red-hot favourite Guillermo Coria would have a leg cramp? Fortunately there wasn't any fighting in the locker room this time, although he did thrash his countryman 6-0 in the first set. But deja vu it wasn't in the end.

Gaudio's facial expressions remind me of Arsenal football player Antonio Reyes'. They have this smiling grimace that makes them a little more likeable than moodier-looking opponents such as Coria. The crowd was behind Gaudio after he went two sets down, but support evened out after his opponent limped off for treatment.

Obviously if not for Coria's cramps, Gaudio would not have won. He was definitely more erratic and committed many errors that made me want to jump up and take over the game for him (and I suck at tennis!).

For one, I didn't see the point of channeling so much of his energy into power serves at the expense of accuracy. If I were Sampras / Roddick / Philippoussis on a hard court, that might be a different story, but this is a clay court and you have a limping opponent. Get real.

However the older man started to improve his technique and became a trickier opponent towards the end.

And to be fair, you cannot fault him for fitness, nor for his desire to play at Roland Garros - the commentators noted that he had to rely on financial support from family and friends to send him to France, because he was an unseeded player. Perhaps he's given the Argentinan government (and many others) something to think about. Nothing is impossible.

And speaking of commentators: Despite the topsy-turvy form of both players, the most irritating person was actually the sports commentator who kept on mixing up Coria with Gaudio - even until the end of the match. It was embarassing and very disturbing that such morons were allowed to speak live on international broadcasts. His fellow commentator(s) kept on correcting him but it didn't really help.

So it was a gruelling, drawn-out affair in every sense of the word. I can imagine Coria will be back next year with a vengeance. But this is Gaudio's day.

Respect to the late Ronald Reagan, possibly the last truly charismatic US president of this modern age.

The SCGS Class of '94 reunion went well. We met up with some of our old teachers, who could actually remember our faces if not our names. Even our principal was there. It was almost eerie that these teachers looked almost the same as they did ten years ago.

I asked my form teacher what was their secret to looking so youthful, and she said it was simply being with so many young students all the time!

In support of our alma mater, some of us (myself included) purchased commemorative postcards of the old school to raise funds for a new S$2 million sports complex. SCGS is currently the school basketball champion and two new courts will be built, among other facilities (we beat IJ! We beat RGS! We beat... everyone!).

It was good catching up with old friends and trying to remember everybody's names. I ended up exchanging more words with some girls than we had ever spoken to each other in our four / ten years in school! It helped that we were a pretty small cohort, about 200, and I estimate the turnout yesterday night to be around 50-60 people.

I know Van Heng is going to kill me for posting this, but I must!

Van Heng: (spots Hui Min) Wait, I know your name ... it's ...

Hui Min: (waits expectantly)

Van Heng: (gives up) Oh, bugger!

Hui Min: (shocked) What!? That's not my name! (Stomps off in mock anger)

Van Heng: No no nooo ...

Me: (Overcome with mirth) ...

It was there that I realised that more of you are reading my blog than I realised ... so, Helloo ladies, just in case you've tuned in to this site. It is flattering that some of you actually remember the minute details of my life. Thanks for stopping by.

Now kindly excuse me while I look for some cup noodles...

My system is down. I suspect it's been hit by the same bug that affected both my sister's and mother's systems.

I suspect it is something that breached our home network. In fact I used to pride myself on the fact that my computer was the only system that withstood all the funny problems that other family members were experiencing, because I was so tight on security that I installed a Firewall, subscribed to an Antivirus service and prevented anyone else from logging in with Administrative rights.

But ever since I turned down my Firewall so that darned Singapore Idol page could somehow load (what is it about that .php file that it redirects me to an error page when my Firewall's up?), nothing has been the same.

I don't recall installing any new programs that day. But I was 'defenceless' for perhaps an hour until I shut down my system. The next morning, it kept on hanging at startup - waiting for the very last unit on the loading bar to fill in.

After the kind advice of KH to press F8, start in Safe Mode / previous configuration, I got my system running - but without any external devices working! My wireless mouse was not working. The battery level and connection looked good. The drivers were still there. My Bluetooth dongle was on, but the system said there was no device detected. I had exclamation marks all over my hardware settings but re-installing drivers didn't seem to help.

Today I tried starting up my system again to continue fixing the problem. Now, it doesn't detect my keyboard while starting up, so pressing F8 doesn't work. Well actually on a few occasions, it did work, but my system now hangs regardless of whether I try starting in Safe Mode or in its previous configuration. So much for computers being logical creatures - they're just as erratic as human beings!

Any advice for this poor, computer-less soul?

I just watched Troy and I don't quite know what to make of it.

Admittedly some moments were poignant - like the courage of the King of Troy for visiting Achilles to reclaim his son Hector's body (aka Eric Bana who came out pretty well - his brother Paris aka Orlando Bloom, was just sitting pretty). The cinematography was also good. Now I truly understand the significance of the face that launched a thousand ships!

Other moments were almost recklessly thrown into the wind, as if the plot didn't have to hold. How could a warrior who's been killing men ruthlessly for years have such a swift change of heart, looking for 'peace'? I wonder if some characterisations were fully thought through.

I myself haven't read Homer's Iliad, although my pal Edward who studied the Classics had loads to say about the movie's inaccuracies and liberal doses of artistic licence. He has many good points and is rather funny, so go forth and read.

And I entirely agree with him and my other pal Joan that Legolas belongs in Lord of the Rings, not Troy where he is a sissy, a cowardly misfit who can only kill people from a distance.

Hollywood movies also tend to drag out the love scenes and invent romances that may not have existed. An attempted murder scene turns into a seduction scene. It helps when your intended victim is blonde and beautiful - and we're not talking about the woman.

And of course, when a hero dies, he takes way much longer to die than normal people. He will say many last words - and then some - and kiss his lover for a while. Finally - finally! he dies.

Other soldiers sustaining the same sort of wounds die at once, sometimes with a howl or a whimper, and perhaps a clatter as they hit the ground.

But we couldn't let that happen to Brad Pitt, can we? To heel, boy!

Is it just me, or is the Singapore Idol online registration page still unavailable?

I tried loading it on IE after Firefox failed to load it. Still, it didn't work.

[Update: I didn't make myself clear enough just now. I can load this link, but nothing happens after I check the box and hit SUBMIT. It goes to an error page. Does it happen to you, too?]

[Update 2: I called MediaCorp today (2/6/04) and they said the page was working. Then inspiration hit me. I disabled my firewall. It worked. Doh!]