September 2006 Archives

I abandoned Friendster after a while, when it got slower and I lost interest in the whole social networking fad. But now that it's improved, I've logged back in and discovered:

1. Horrors - old incriminating photographs of me and my past lives!
2. Many friends have updated their profiles and photographs and it's fun going through them all.
3. I haven't kept in touch with many of the friends in my list. Eep.
4. I could have a personalised URL, then discovered that friendster.com/vantan and friendster.com/vanessatan were already taken!!! By teenage namesakes!! Argh. Oh well. I have to make do with friendster.com/vantanorg. (If you know me, add me. OK, this week it's social networking overload!!)
5. It's time I updated my own profile.

Technorati Tags: Friendster, social networking

Facebook has just opened up to public users who can associate themselves by region (instead of school or workplace). IMHO, it's a big threat to Friendster and Myspace. Now social networking becomes a triumvirate.

Join the Singapore network! If you're a friend of mine, add me. I've sent invites to some of you.

The first person to approve my friend request is someone I kind of met at SXSW 2006 - Baratunde, a very funny comedian who cracked us up at Fray Cafe.

Michael Arrington from Techcrunch (which I like to read) asked his readers to add him as well. So I will.

Finally, a cool feature in Facebook is the ability to import your blog. I've done just that.

Update 1: I understand why some users got upset with Facebook's new update feed feature. Hypothetically, if I changed my status from "in a relationship" to "single" or "it's complicated", I wouldn't want the whole world to see that. [Then again, if we really wanted to keep things private, why would we go online in the first place? :P]

At least Facebook lets you control some privacy settings and doesn't keep track of whose profiles you've viewed and people you've rejected as friends. Awkward stuff like that, it's good not to publicise.

Technorati Tags: Facebook, Myspace, social networking

I haven't written about this early enough, but fans of the fusion Japanese restaurant Bistro Cameleon should be delighted to hear that it has reopened at Robertson Walk!

The only difference, say the new, empowered waitresses and chef (employee-owners, I heard), is that they now spell it properly with a 'h'. In short, it's "Chameleon".

The guy who trained under the original owner-chef, Takashi, is now the main chef. So there's some consistency and quality control.

 
The salmon sashimi salad looks and tastes the same. Go for it!


The chicken teriyaki pizza with wasabe looks and tastes the same, except the base is a bit thicker and overall the pizza is smaller in diameter (as you can see).


The ramen noodle salad tasted mostly the same - but we couldn't place our finger on a missing ingredient. What is it?!


The new chef has his own creations - some cooked fish (forgot the name). Pleasant, but not something I will die for.


His beef salad was nice. This can be a meal on its own!

If you have more pics of Chameleon food, do post a comment here with a link to your online album. Cheerios!

Today was my anti-procrastination day. It began a little shakily with me getting out of bed 10 minutes later than I had planned, but thereafter I set about tackling my overdue to-do list. I:

1. Gave up trying to activate my newly-purchased copy of Adobe Photoshop online (there was a connectivity problem with my PowerMac). In the end I activated it by phone. I'm usually quite loathe to make phone calls, especially to do with software problems. Ugh, at least I got that out of the way.
2. Informed the people at church that I and a friend would be signing up for the 'Christianity Explored' course. My friend may be reading this post. Yes, it's you.
3. Threw out some old clothes I used to wear in university, which I'd never want to wear now.
4. Finally bought new music software which I was eyeing for a while. At first I felt it was too amateurish for my needs, especially since I already had Logic Pro 7. Then realising that it was so easy to use that I'd save a lot of time while practising for my jazz piano lessons.
5. Restored/reformatted my buggy iPod. Quite a big task, considering my 60GB iPod is nearly full. Imagine how long it took to load back all my songs and photos!
6. Returned to dance lessons today, after skipping alternate lessons due to my busy work schedule. Managed to recall some salsa steps taught in previous lessons. Learnt some basic ballroom dancing steps.
7. Completed another family project, taking photos of old photos. Worked past dinnertime to complete the job.

I still have yet to sign up for new gym classes and sort out lots of other things. But it's a start.

Phew! Arsenal made the most of their last 30 minutes and stifled the attacking spirit of Sheffield United for their first home win this season.

William Gallas was an all-rounded performer who scored a goal deservedly. Freddie Ljungberg looked livelier today. Thierry Henry finally provided an 'assist' to a Sheffield player's own goal and scored one as well. He's still not looking at his best, but it's much better than before.

Arsenal finally scoring and winning in their own stadium is like ... not having constipation anymore. Imagine if you could do it in a Man United loo but not the brand new loo in your own home. That would be a sick feeling indeed.

Being primarily an Arsenal supporter, I've never been a big follower of Bolton Wanderers and most other teams. But I am enjoying reading Kevin Nolan's weekly columns on the BBC website. This last post, for instance, struck a note with me.

He's lost his mobile phones more times than I have. Heh. He shares cabs with normal folk. That's nice; you'd expect football captains to be speeding off with skimpy models in sports cars. We learn he wasn't as disappointed as some thought, when Sven-Goran didn't pick him for the England team. From his first post, I learnt that his favourite food is Chinese, his favourite colour is red, and he likes the Godfather series too.

Suddenly, in the space of one evening, I've become more interested in looking out for Kevin Nolan the next time they televise a Bolton match. Because I now feel like I can relate to him better than most other footballers (especially those who only seem to get mentioned in the tabloids).

Last season I also liked reading Jason Robert's columns. It gave me a strange feeling, that this man whose posts I was reading, was scoring goals for Wigan real time, and I was watching him on the telly. Wigan were something of a phenomenon for the first half of the season until the big boys knocked them down to the middle of the table. They earned my respect, and knowing that they're a bunch of guys who still bought 20 quid presents for each other and did crazy things, gave a more human touch to my world of football.

Technorati Tags: Bolton, soccer, BBC, Kevin Nolan, Jason Roberts

The Wall Street Journal reports that McDonald's in China advertises beef as sexy, to men. A TV commercial is described thus:

"...a man and a woman eat Quarter Pounders, and close-up shots of the woman's neck and mouth are interspersed with images of fireworks and spraying water. The actors suck their fingers. The voice-over says: "You can feel it. Thicker. You can taste it. Juicier."

Technorati Tags: McDonald's, advertisements, beef, sex appeal

To think I was celebrating the acquisition of Rojo by Sixapart in a recent post.

A few days ago I logged into Rojo for my daily fix of geek news and was surprised to find that the tag cloud was gone. Gone! When I first used Rojo I found it a bit overwhelming but soon grew to like the tag cloud. The cloud has been replaced with a boring-looking vertical nav bar which also has less tags. Not an improvement!

I usually don't bother to venture into the other sections of Rojo but I felt disturbed enough to read visit the forum. Then I learnt that other Rojo users were also up in arms. Our feeds went missing (I didn't notice because I tend to visit only the front page to view user-rated top news). And this has apparently been going on for 5 days.

What surprises me is how so many problems were allowed to happen. At a time like this, soon after the press release, it's not good for PR.

Technorati Tags: Rojo, Web 2.0, SixApart

Just added Digg to my posts. Not that I expect to be dug very often but every now and then the site ought to be tweaked. You dig?

Did you know? Apple Stores take in almost half a million bucks (US$) a week. Each. And employee turnover is less than half the average for the retail industry. Infinite Loop reports.

Bill Clinton visits a group of Democrat bloggers. The former President understands that this is the new wave of public relations. (link from Bloggersblog.com) Some pretty nasty comments about Clinton there, but frankly he's one of my favourite US presidents, apart from Monicagate. At least, as Daily Kos notes, "he reads the blogs".

Random industry news for the day.

I nearly couldn't bear to watch this game. But I did, and am glad for it.

After watching Chelsea beat Liverpool I felt it was lost ... Manchester United would obviously be the favourites to beat Arsenal at Old Trafford and the title race would almost be sealed. Arsenal haven't been doing too well against their nemesis in the last few seasons, and under former captain Patrick Vieira the encounters were rather physical, too.

However, apart from tattle-tale Wayne Rooney getting Jens Lehmann yellow-carded at the beginning, the foul that led to a penalty kick for Arsenal, and Lehmann getting smacked in the face by Cristiano Ronaldo's ball at close range, there wasn't anything really adversarial or violent about the game. Which was good.

Arsenal once again were playing lovely passes but as with other recent EPL matches I feared they couldn't finish. Especially with Thierry Henry injured and off-form. The crowded shouted "Theo! Theo!" many times but young Walcott didn't come on. Emmanuel Adebayor annoyed me with his misses at fairly close range. I see him as a B-grade striker. Lehmann's aggressive mannerisms also largely unnecessary - why put himself at risk of getting a second consecutive yellow card?

However, in the end all was forgiven as Adebayor tapped in the ball for a goal, and Lehmann made great saves as Man United frantically stepped up their efforts to score an equaliser in the dying minutes of the game. In vain :-B

Other player ratings:

Tomas Rosicky, Alexander Hleb and William Gallas were lively and contributed to the flow of the Gunner's game. I liked how Gallas roared with pride at the end of the match and got the crowd clapping. I can nearly forget about Ashley ... Ashley who?

Fredrik Ljungberg is not as good as he used to be, and can be outrun by opponents. Substitute Cesar Julio Baptista was not too bad. His shots were near misses and it should only be a matter of time before he finds the back of the net for Arsenal.

Gilberto Silva's penalty shot was not powerful and Thierry Henry is missed in this area. However Gilberto did act like a captain, giving the thumbs up in acknowledgment of a good attempt.

I was also happy to hear that Newcastle won. There is life after Alan Shearer, much as I've admired him.

So overall, it was a satisfying night in the end.

Technorati Tags: Arsenal, Manchester United, soccer

I've been lazy. Here's my Sydney log, all in one post:

6-7 Sep 2006

Rushed home this afternoon to finish packing my bags. Had a light dinner at the lounge, then boarded the plane.

Watched 4 movies on the way to Sydney. Caught the tail end of X-men 3 and shed a tear when Wolverine made his final act to save Jean Grey from herself.

The Da Vinci Code was a riveting movie. I haven't had time to read the book, but heard it was better than the movie. I found hard to believe how easy it was for the 2 main characters to escape all the time.

As a Christian, I did not get offended. I took it as a story where people would inevitably ask questions about Jesus. People have a right to find out the truth for themselves.

Keeping Mum was diabolically good, though I expected Rowan Atkinson's character, the Vicar, to play a more leading role in the main storyline. I was actually glad to see him spice up his boring sermons with jokes and apply the Song of Songs (kind of like the Karma Sutra, but in the Bible) to his own marriage. Patrick Swayze overacted and was slightly annoying.

Finally, a gender-bender flick: Kinky Boots. Based on a true story, the movie shows how the young owner of a shoe factory revitalises his family's flagging business with the help of a gutsy female employee (romance!) and a transvestite turned shoe designer and model. The strongest secondary theme to me was a re-assessment of the male identity - turning societal norms upside down and realising that real men don't have to wear pants to do something courageous.

There were strong winds which shortened our flight time. However, after we landed in Sydney the winds got too strong. A solid metal trolley was overturned.

I bumped into my old schoolmate W at the Arrivals lounge. I was actually wondering if I'd see her, since I knew she was in Sydney, and lo and behold - she was fetching someone from the same flight as us! It was a happy coincidence.

We had breakfast. Waited for our rooms to be ready. Then I caught up on sleep.

Had lunch at Pyrmont's Steak & Seafood restaurant.

8 Sep 2006

Deposited grandma at Woolworth's, went to Kino with sister. We all met up for lunch at a fusion Jap-Australian restaurant at Old Queen Victoria building. Then spent another couple hours exploring the area.

Had a cruise tour around Sydney Harbour, then walked all the way back to Chinatown for a group dinner.

9 Sep 2006

Woke up really early & went to Blue Mountain. Along the way we visited the birds, Kangaroos & Koalas.

Had a satisfying lunch at a country club near Blue Mountain.

Sat on a really steep tram (250m deep) & saw the 3 sisters.

It was bloody cold out there. Steam was Coming out of our mouths. I bought a fluffy blue beanie to wrap around my head so my ears wouldn't fall off.

Had a huge dinner at Shangri-La.

10 Sep 2006

Woke up a bit later. Had breakfast, then went to Bondi for shopping. Spent most of the time walking about, getting lost. Bought some cheap CDs and many pairs of socks. Mundane, innit.

11 Sep 2006

Going to Hunter Valley.

As we entered vineyard territory, going past the last group of residential houses, a sign said "Please minimise noise", except that the "I" was scratched out and it now read "Please minimise nose".

Had lunch at Harrigan's Irish Pub and listened to Australian folk music. The performer asked where we came from, and we told him. He tried to think of a 'Singapore Song' to sing. I muttered audibly. ''Don't try too hard." Sure enough, he couldn't. We don't have a decent song that people around the world know how to sing.

12 Sep 2006

Caught the morning flight back to Singapore. Did lots of reading this time. Caught a bit of a French movie, and that was about it. Changi Airport was all geared for IMF visitors.

We watched Singapore Dreaming yesterday. Overall, it was a good local movie with some stereotypical aspirations that Singaporeans would be familiar with - the 5Cs (cash, car, condo, credit card, country club) and an extra one thrown in for good measure: coffin.

It was fascinating to see how even in death the Chinese burn paper cars with chauffeurs, laptops and bungalows in the hope that their dearly departed will have a luxurious afterlife.

The main theme of the show, as you may gather, is aspirations. It shows what some people do to get what they want. How the manifestations of success are only skin-deep. It's what's inside that matters.

Underlying the film, to me, were common communication problems that Singaporeans experience in their relationships - unreasonable expectations, not listening when others are trying to express themselves, or listening but not wanting to understand. And of course, having outbursts at loved ones who are good to you, while trying to be nice to bosses who abuse you. Isn't it ironic how our priorities get misplaced?

The casting was generally fine, though I wasn't comfortable with the actors playing the sister's boss and his wife. They appeared too young and didn't really act convincingly. It's easy to look flustered and go into hysterics but even then it felt overdone.

The film has subtitles which translate Singlish into proper English. I was mildly amused at that. But I guess it is required if one wishes to garner international acclaim - we need to be understood by the rest of the world. I'm concerned that Singlish will become a problem for us. Those who get too comfortable speaking this mix of English, Chinese dialects and Malay, will have difficulty communicating naturally in proper languages.

After the movie, it was nice to have the producers saying a few words to us. Let's support good homegrown films like this one. Go watch it with family and friends!

You can listen to my interview on Radio Singapore International (RSI) here. The transcript is also on that webpage. Cheers.

My favourite news aggregator, Rojo, was bought over by my (still) favourite blog company, SixApart.

eBible is now open to the public. Now you can play 'tag' with Jesus ;-)

Outsiders may be able to join Facebook. Hmm I wonder if they'll add Singapore to the list.

I spent the last week in Sydney. Of all times, it turned out to be the wettest week since 1883 (according to the papers).

We went on tour, met up with old family friends, took a harbour cruise, visited the Featherdale Wildlife Park and Blue Mountains, tasted wine and cheese in the Hunter Valley and braved the erratic weather conditions throughout our trip.

I kept a log on my PDA phone and will, in time, transfer everything to this blog.

Oh, I took about 700 photos too. Will be sorting them out and uploading the good shots to Flickr.

Already, my email inboxes are flooded and I have queries to handle. *grimace* Back to the grind.

'Couldn't sleep, so I decided to sing depressing George Michael songs until I got tired. Then I realised I could hit most of the low notes in Cowboys and Angels.

When your heart's in someone else's hands Monkey see and monkey do
Their wish is your command
You're not to blame
Everyone's the same

All you do is love and love is all you do
I should know by now, the way I fought for you
You're not to blame
Everyone's the same

I know you think that you're safe
Mister
Harmless deception
That keeps love at bay
It's the ones who resist that we most want to kiss
Wouldn't you say?
Cowboys and angels
They all have the time for you
Why should I imagine
That I'd be a find for you
Why should I imagine
That I'd have something to say
But that scar on your face
That beautiful face of yours [low note]
In your heart there's a trace
Of someone before [another low note]

His lyrics are just so sad. I can relate to them.

A long time ago, someone whose feelings I couldn't reciprocate, looked at me while playing my George Michael CDs, and simply said, "I Can't Make You Love Me."

I didn't say anything, because nothing I said would have made things better. But I haven't forgotten. Maybe we are able to express ourselves better through music. That's what I've been doing for so many years.

Moving on, I was able to hit all the notes on 'You Have Been Loved'. Hurrah. (Karaoke, anyone? After the big campaign's over.)

I have a radio interview today. I'm not sure what all this is going to do to my voice, but I hope it helps me to sleep, eventually.

What's keeping me up is a combination of feeling overwhelmed, inadequate and therefore guilty - for work and other matters. Also, I tend to practice for vocal performances by singing unrelated songs.

You should be able to hear me croak, or squeak, on the new series Blogwatch on Newsradio 93.8FM, Singapore. I'll confirm the timing when I know for sure. Update: Listen out for it at 8.45pm on Newsradio 93.8FM this Friday. I won't be around to hear it.

[Yes, this is a convoluted post. It's now 2.30am.]

We watched The Devil Wears Prada last night. It was as good as I had heard it would be.

Anyone who's ever had a demanding, political job can empathise with Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway), the new assistant to fashion editor Miranda Priestly (well-casted as Meryl Streep), the eponymous anti-heroine of the movie.

While generally entertaining, some parts of the movie were too exaggerated to be believable. How could a babe like Andy not know anything about fashion? Even I know how to spell "Gabbana". However, I admit that the only difference between the two 'turqoise' belts, to me, was the size of the buckle.

After some initial hiccups, Andy's chirpiness stays with her even months into the job, which is passable in a movie but I wondered if it would happen in real life. She had an amazing work attitude and even the most demanding boss would be impressed at the mountains she moved to stay in that job.

I can empathise with Andy on feeling like there was no choice in some matters. I went through that phase a couple years ago. Also, there's the inevitable conflict between work versus friends, lovers and family. Sometimes you can't juggle all of them together and something has to give. That's when you re-assess your priorities in life. I felt a strong twinge of guilt while watching the movie, as I've become very tardy in keeping appointments with friends. I still haven't visited two friends after they've given birth, and I've cancelled out on dinners, due to family and work commitments.

Miranda Priestly reminded me very much of Cruella De Vil. Fortunately no Dalmatians were harmed in the production of this movie (not sure about other types of furry animals, though). She was merciless, impossibly hard to please, but showed her human side eventually.

OK, any more spoilers and you'd make me walk off the runway. Go watch it and enjoy the show!

Yesterday we needed some curry to be placed in a bowl, as part of a food exhibit. We managed to locate a food stall nearby which sold curry. The guy dishing out the food wasn't sure what he was allowed to do, so he checked with his lady supervisor and she billed us $1 for a few spoons of curry. We went back happy, and the stall made a bit of money in exchange for some sauce.

Today we needed to place fresh curry into the same bowl for the second day of our exhibition. We went back to the same stall. This time we were served by different people. This other man said they would never allow such a sale.

In my best Mandarin (which is not very good), I pointed out that yesterday his colleagues sold us a small amount of curry for $1. The man checked with his colleagues and insisted that his instructions were to sell a certain amount of curry sauce together with meat and potatoes, and that each portion must cost $3.

We went to other stalls and were told the same thing - "Our instructions are to sell exactly this amount of food for this amount of money." No more, no less. Finally, one of our partner stalls at the other Tower contributed the curry we needed.

This was a minor incident. But I wondered: in business, how many opportunities have been missed because staff haven't been given flexible guidelines, or weren't thinking like their bosses who owned the business?

I was at the Suntec City Tropics Atrium yesterday, and will be there again today and tomorrow. We have set up a mock HDB flat with a 'healthier' take. I will be at the playground section. Bring your kids along!

I have been impressed with children's ability to take something ordinary and turn it into an obstacle course. You'll see what I mean if you go there.

Outside Carrefour, there is also a Healthy Food Bazaar where you can buy healthier choice products and food. That area was very popular yesterday. Food is at the heart of Singaporeans...