Ode to Australia, Japan, Selina, Gavin, Wai Keet & everything in between...

For those who were at the party: No explanation required. Just enjoy the vid. :)

For those who weren't: Here's a little diddly I wrote and performed with Sonia for my good buddies from church, Sel and Gav who are migrating to Australia, and Wai Keet who's going to Japan to study Japanese, and performed it at their farewell party. I somehow managed to throw this song together in about 4 days (after working hours, of course), and it came out pretty good, so I'm pretty stoked. :) By the way, Wai Keet loves to cosplay (that's Costume-Play ie. dress up in costumes, mainly for Anime fans) while Selina loves pink, so our party's theme was 'Costumes/All Pink'!!



Just to give credit where it's due and for those who are curious, some lyrics were ripped off the following songs:

1) The Australian National Anthem, though in all honesty, I think Adam Hill's version is MUCH better!
2)"I Come From The Land Down Under" by Men at Work. Makes me think videos in the 80's were so much more entertaining than the half-naked-people-prancing-around vids they make these days... though I wonder why there are electricity poles in the middle of a desert at the end of the vid??
3)"Sukiyaki" by 4PM, though originally it was a Japanese song sung by Kyu Sakamoto with lyrics of totally different meaning, and apparently that song has been remade a gazaillion times, but I guess most people, like me, would know the 4pm version. :P
4) "Turning Japanese" by the Vapors. This song is classic and some punk rock band seriously needs to remake this!!!
5) The Doraemon Theme Song. And no, I have no idea what the lyrics mean. But that didn't make singing it any less fun! XD

I have photos!!!!

Adam Lambert is a freakin' genius!!!

I mean, c'mon, anyone who can take this...:



And turn it into this...:



...and perform it on American Idol during COUNTRY week, must surely earn a place in genius land. ;)

Poetic inspiration comes at strange circumstances...

In the garden of Sel, Gav & Terk
I took this most fascinating pic,
Good enough, I would hope,
To be on National Geographic!

Though it may be their nature,
To mate amongst the blooms,
It was my nature too,
To yell out "Get a room!"

To this Coleopteran hanging on
A leaf for her life so dear
With her male partner's appendage
Stuck up her...*ahem*

And to entitle this photo
Between choices, I'm torn
To name it 'Insect Procreation'
Or more simply, 'Bug Porn'?

AI takes for 2009

Oh, how I forget about my annual American Idol post? Yeah well, this time round I won't be making such detailed predictions of who's going to get through week by week coz' 1) I'm too lazy, and 2) most of you fellas reading this probably don't watch AI anyway, so you wouldn't know what I'm talking about... but for those who DO watch it (or at least read about it), here are my takes so far:

1) Thank God Tatiana Del Toro didn't make it through to top 12 last week. Not that she's a bad singer, in fact, I concede that she's a fantastic singer. But for one thing, I can't stand her drama queen antics, and I can't stand her hyena-like laughter either. Buh bye, Tati!

2) I'm sad that Nick Mitchell/Norman (or Normund? No one seems to know how to spell his name right!) Gentle didn't make it through this week. Not a great singer, but certainly the most entertaining idol contestant ever. Certainly more entertaining that what's-his-name who sang 'Man in the Mirror' and managed to get through to the top 12. You certainly can't disagree after watching this:



They better bring him back on Wildcard night!

3) Dunno where this dude popped out from, but as soon as he started his rendition of 'Can't Get No Satisfaction', I fell in love with Adam Lambert:



I hope he wins American Idol!!! But it's more likely that...

4) Danny Gokey will win the whole show. He can sing darn well, he's pretty cute, and his pretty wife just passed away recently. So he'll get the good-singer votes, cute-guy votes AND sympathy votes. How not to win like dat??

Sorry the vids are rather crappy though. Apparently Fremantle International removes any videos of original clips from the show for copyright infringement. Yeesh, like they're already earning gazillions from the show, they could at least let people enjoy the real vids on Youtube for free. >:(

The Un-traumatizing Process

I'm kind of sitting here not really sure what to write about and kind of updating my blog for the sake of assuring people who actually bother to read it that I have not disappeared off the face of the earth. Unfortunately I've been going through a phase of kind of wanting to keep a low profile and not my usually blab-about-whatever-I-feel-like self here... as weird as it may sound, I'm pretty sure it's the side effects of my experiences at my previous job, where I got nitpicked on by my boss for so many stupid things that I became rather withdrawn, tense and paranoid that anything I do would somehow or another turn out to be wrong... and even now at my new job, where far as I can see my bosses and the culture is much better, I'm still having trouble 'un-traumatizing' myself from past experiences. Fine example is sending emails... one of the things I got into trouble for before was sending emails to 'outsiders' (which includes people WITHIN the company, but not under my bosses' team) without going though my boss, which ticked him off coz' he was afraid that I would say stuff that would ruin the image of his team, and he was also mad coz' I refered to him as 'my manager' instead of by his correct position in one of my emails. Later on, I realized that this culture of fear and image protection isn't just his problem, but really stems from people at the top. Anyhow, after that, I was super careful about whatever I wrote in my emails, and was always wondering if I should check with him first before sending anything... even for small minor things that bosses shouldn't even be bothered about. Naturally, repeated scanning through emails for mistakes or anything that could 'ruin company's image' was quite a waste of time when I could be doing more important work. Certainly, being paranoid is far from productive.

But anyhow, so far things have been good at my new office. I'm still enjoying the fact that it's only 7 minutes drive from my house (would be less if not for a patch of road at the shortcut that's not tarred and full of potholes, which I would rather avoid), I can wake up after 8am and be at office in half an hour, and when I'm sleepy, I can come back during lunch hour and nap in my cozy bed. Hmmm... So far no problems with bosses and colleagues are all great (no office bullies. Whew!) and the one of the German directors who only comes in once a month or so just loves going around, hugging and kissing all the girls (on the head, yeah!) everytime he sees them. He didn't do it to me the first time we met, of course, he just shook my hand hard enough that I thought it was going to fall off!

I can't really say everything will continue being hunky dory since I've only been here like 2 weeks. Usually I figure out whether I love the place or not within 6 months... so I hope and pray I can do well here and be here for a loooooong time. And even more hopefully, I get my groove back and post more interesting stuff here. :P