Soundtrack of My Life

I’m busy reading this cool blog recently, Jay’s Malaysian Diary, by this 27-year old German university student. He’s in Malaysia for 6 months for an internship with Siemens, and I’m really digging all his posts… You got to like a German guy who thinks Malaysia is fabulous.

Reading his posts inspired me to write a something about my fantastic grasp of German, (”ist Ihre Tochter 18 Jahre alt?”) but that would be later, i found another of Jay’s post i simply must write about now.

Its sort of a meme, except it doesn’t propagate itself via tagging… so its not evil… but I’m turning into a meme-tag for the sake for torturing those bloggers who love music just like me. Anyway, read on and you’ll know what it’s about.

I’m actually in the midst of selecting some songs to use in this play I’m writing, so I running through my mind trying to remember all the songs from my past…

1. One song… from your early childhood:
   Seasons In The Sun - Terry Jacks (yes, the tragic original, not the desecration a few years ago)

2. One song… you are associating with your first big love:
   Love of a Lifetime - Firehouse (gawd, does this bring back memories)

3. One song… which reminds you to one of your holidays:
   Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is A Season) - The Byrds (it’s from the Forrest Gump soundtrack)

4. One song… you like, but you have got to problems to confess:
   You’ll See - Madonna

5. One song… which accompanied you, while you where lovesick:
   Se A Vide E - Pet Shop Boys (its a long story)

6. One song… you listened to most often in your life:
   Nothing Else Matters - Metallica (one of many, actually…)

7. One song… which is your most favoured instrumental:
   actually can’t think of one… maybe something old…

8. One song… which represents one of your most favoured bands:
   Unforgiven II - Metallica (the lyrics still give me the creeps. After all this while)

9. One song… in which you recognizes yourself or through which you feel somehow understood:
   Simple Man - Whitecross (i dunno, I always think the song was written for me.)

10. One song… which reminds you to a certain occasion (and the occasion):
    Herz Aus Stahl - Manowar (I was finishing my final year thesis… and the title is mentioned on the front page!)

11. One song… you like an which belongs to the Hip Hop / Rap genre:
    Believe Me - Fort Minor

12. One song… which is the best for you to relax:
    Moonlight Shadow - Mike Oldfield

13. One song… which symbolizes a great time in your life:
    Forever And One - Helloween (First job, falling in love, the world before me… I wonder where it all went wrong)

14. One song… which is your most favourite song at the moment:
    Because of You - Kelly Clarkson

15. One song… which you would dedicate to your best friend:
    Ammonia Avenue - The Alan Parsons Project

16. One song… where you have got the feeling that no one besides you likes it:
    I Miss the Rain - Bride (see? You haven’t even heard of it…!)

17. One song… you like because of its lyrics:
    Mmm, Mmm, Mmm, Mmm - Crash Test Dummies (i just love the words!)

18. One song… you like very much and which is neither german nor english:
    Patahnya Sayap Malam by Masa (I would have gone for Fantasia Bulan Madu, but that was too obvious…?)

19. One song… which helps you to work off:
    I Just Want You - Ozzy Osbourne

20. One song… which should be played on your funeral:
    Face to Face - King James (I doubt anyone else in Malaysia even knows the band, let alone the song)

Okay, I’m turning this into a vicious meme… I’m tagging the following music lovers:

- anjali*
- mama23beas
- reta

That Old Vending Machine

Back in my old school, they had a vending machine next to the staff common room selling soft drinks. It dispensed the drinks in a paper cup, not the tin can version. Vending machines were quite a new thing back then, and all of us in school were quite proud of it.

Some other schools had vending machines selling packet drinks, that wasn’t as cool as ours; ours had Coke, Orange Crush, and more importantly, Fanta Grape. For some strange reason, Fanta Grape was far and away the most popular drink, it was always the first to sell out after they refill the machine. We could actually buy any kind of soft drink from the less than hygienic canteen in our school, but buying from that vending machine was so much ‘cooler’.

That old machine wasn’t very smart – It couldn’t detect if it ran out of paper cups. So if you bought a drink when the cups ran out, the soft drink would just dispense out onto the floor, and there goes your 50sen. Yep, a cup of soft fizzy drink cost so much back then…

At the same time, in the district hospital in town, there was another kind of vending machine – this one sold hot drinks like coffee, tea and hot chocolate. As a kid, my dad let me try the hot chocolate once, it was freaking hot, but tasted fabulous!

I still see those kind of machines around, now they have espresso and other designer coffee… the last time I had the hot chocolate again was in the dead of the night waiting for the birth of first kid. This was in a far different hospital from that one in the old hometown.

Nowadays they have vending machines for everything under the sun – stamps, postcards, candy bars, etc. In Japan they even have machines selling French fries , sandwiches and other fresh food.

And guess what my friends in school call our the soft drinks from the vending machine? ‘Kencing robot’ *.

* Translation - Robot piss.

Technorati Tags: vending machine, Coke, Fanta Grape

Simon Talks About Colour Pencils

My daughter has hundreds of colour pencils. And crayons and erasers, rulers, pencil boxes, colour pencils outnumber the by far. Everywhere I look, I see them lying around. They’re all different lengths, all coming originally from different boxsets, some given by people, some won at sand art contests.

Kind of the same types of colour pencils I had when I was small. We had this steel pencil box (yes, they had steel pencil boxes on those days. Especially those ‘Oxford Instrument’ ones that originally contained a compass, a ruler, a set square and a jangkasudut…). We would put all our colour pencils in it.

Speaking of colour pencils and other stationery, there were certain things that were done a certain way:

• We never sharpen both ends of the pencil. Only end that is supposed to be sharpen. Apparently, something bad will happen to you if you did. Phooey. When you’re 8 years old, you believe every crap your elder brother tells you.

• I never fancied those pencils with the attaching eraser at the other end. Because, the eraser will inadvertently run out faster than the pencil, leaving the steel bit sticking out. I hate that.

• Speaking our erasers, the only type we had was this flat rectangle type, with the top part coloured green, and the rest in white. There was a colour picture on one side of the eraser, usually an alphabet like ‘D’ and there would be a picture of a dog (‘D’ for dog, get it? Good). I never found out why the top part was coloured green, though.

• There was another type of eraser, that usually came in the ‘Oxford Instrument’ set. It was dark blue, shape in a rhombus. We were always told never to use those, because it was a pen eraser and using it would usually tear our pages.

• When it came to colour pencils, everyone used to Staedler Luna brand, with a sailboat on the cover. Standard set came in 8 or 12 colours. The first colours to finish were blue, red and yellow (for colouring human skin. Yes, I’m Chinese). Nobody used the white colour. Why do they even give you a white colour when you can’t see it?

• Those rich kids in my class would have expensive steel case colour pencils, with 24 or 36 or 194 colours, with exotic shades like gold, sanguine and Moonlight Cherry. Everytime they whipped out their set, the rest of us would go “oooh” and “aaah”.

• Then there were those fusspot kids that only used one corner of the eraser. They NEVER the other corners, as ‘it was new’. Weird kids. I used every corner. Yep, I’m scruffy.

Autograph Books On The Last Day of School

Remember back in school, on the last day of the term, after the exams are over, and everyone whips out their autograph books for their friends to sign. It doesn’t matter if you probably stay next door to your classmate and see him / her every other day, you still want their autograph.

The thing about autograph books – they always a pink or blue or yellow, filled with pictures of fairies, pixies, flowers, seascape, meadow scenery, and all that projectile vomit inducing stuff.

And the sick part is I can still remember all those saccharine sweet poems my friends loved to write.

Drink hot coffee, drink hot tea,
Burn your lips, but remember me.

Does it even make sense? If I burn my lips on coffee, I’ll mutter a lot of stuff, but not remember friends from 12 years ago.

Far in the ocean, there lies a rock,
On it written, “Forget Me Not”.

Who wrote on this rock? How far on the ocean? And who actually saw it? Is it a mystery, like those Easter Island carvings?

This one is a play on the music symbols:

Don’t be sharp (#),
Don’t be flat (b),
Just be natural.

You’re supposed to write the ‘natural’ symbol there, I can’t reproduce the symbol here. I kind of like this one, its pretty creative.

This one is quite popular, it’s taken from a 60’s hit by Bobby McVee.

Roses are red, violets are blue,
Sugar is sweet, but not as sweet as you…

But I like this one better…

Or this one…

I wish I had a picture of you, that would be very nice,
I’d hang it in the cellar, and scare away the mice…

As you can tell, I wasn’t very popular in school.

That 10-Word Meme

The meme was passed on to me by Si Beruang Kutub, and I know its been awhile, but better late than never, right? Right?! Neeways… this is how it goes: I’ve 10 words and have to write an essay based on these 10 words which have to be used at least once. The 10 words are:

• I
• me
• blowjob
• grapes
• random
• power
• loneliness
• water
• robot
• blue

So here goes:

Gandalf was having a bad day. The hobbits have ran off to follow Dumbledore, and Aragorn is having a photoshoot for the cover of Modern Knight magazine. “I’m the most bloody-power-ful wizard in this Earth-in-the-Middle, the sea-water and even Asimov’s robots obey me. Yet I can’t help feel overcome by loneliness… I can’t even remember the last random spell I cast… Must be against that dastardly White Witch when she tried to steal my blue grapes…”

Okay, fine. It’s kind of weak, but I’ve been racking my brain for the past half hour over it… I’ve changed ‘blowjob’ to ‘photoshoot’. For Aragorn, it may pretty much the same thing.

Technorati Tags: meme

An Introduction to American Idol

What? You’ve never watched American Idol? Every week 20 million plus Americans and even more worldwide watch this show. 2 or 3 times a week.

So what’s it about?

It’s your school talentime contest. On a much bigger scale. It’s also a popularity contest. It’s also a study in demography and American race studies.

It starts with 6-7 weeks of auditions. Hundreds and thousands of wannabe singers, psychopaths, self delusional psychics, lonely cowboys, cross-dressing headcases come and try to impress the 3 judges. So, in short, you’re average American. So out of the 43 million people who audition, usually 200 people are selected to ‘go to Hollywood’.

Why ‘go to Hollywood’? I thought only aspiring actors and escort service girls ‘go to Hollywood’? Shouldn’t wannabe singers go to Motown? Or Cleveland, the home of rock ‘n roll? Or Graceland? Memphis?

Well, anyway, they really actually go to Hollywood. Then begin the Hollywood trials. Here for one week, they are put through another audition, group them up and make them sing as a group (where the cameras go all out to catch every bitchy comment, tantrum, catfight, raised eyebrow, hissy fit, psychological breakdown, and every other element that makes good TV) and sing a capella. Finally they are whittled down to 12 boys and 12 girls.

Then the judges jobs are over. From now on, the all power telcos (phone companies) of US take over. Viewers send in text messages or call in a hotline to vote their favourite singers. Every week 2 boys and 2 girls get kicked out amidst some touching montage with sentimental music and tears. Usually, the less hot-looking guys and tone deaf girls get kicked out first. The remaining 6 boys and girls go to that all important ‘final’.

In the so-called ‘final’, the contestants sing to a weekly theme, like “songs from movies”, “songs from the 60’s”, “songs of Cheech and Chong” (to which either Cheech or Chong might appear as a guest judge). You get the picture. So every week, the singer with the lowest number of votes will get eliminated. So, the longer you stay in the competition, the more likely you stand to win a recording contract.

The last 2 contestants will contest in a glamourous grand finale, where every Tom, Dick and Harry who has appeared in the previous episodes or seasons will make a guest appearance and sing endlessly.

The winner wins a recording contract. And maybe, if you disown the show, you might even win a Grammy.

Speaking of the judges. There are 3 of them, Randy, Paula and Simon.

Randy Jackson was once some recording guy, apparently he knows Whitney Houston, but not well enough to get her to appear as a guest judge. I suspect Randy has a limited English vocabulary, he can’t go one sentence without using one of the following words – ‘aight’, ‘dog’, ‘work it out’, ‘didn’t do it for me’, ‘bomb’. Recently he has also gone to lengths to agree with Simon (the judge, not THIS Simon). Paula Abdul, if you remember her, was a bit like the singer Lumidee in the new millennium. Don’t know who Lumidee is? Well, same goes for Paula. On this show, every week, every other contestant will touch Paula’s heart or own the stage or did a good job (insert your own Corey Clark innuendo here).

Simon Cowell is the last judge, an English bloke with a fake sarcastic tongue. If you’re good, or even fabulous like Mariah Carey, he’ll say you’re ‘good’. If not, you’re ‘horrendous’, ‘cabaret’, ‘a disaster’, you get the picture. Ironically, Simon is the only judge who, in my opinion, has the closest judgement to what the viewers like.

The host is this smiley, stubble-faced guy called Ryan Seacrest. Jay Leno thinks he’s gay, I dunno. He’s the only guy that knows how to put Simon Cowell in his place, so I like him.

Technorati Tags: American Idol, Randy Jackson, Paula Abdul, Simon Cowell, Ryan Seacrest

Balloons and Kids

When I was small, balloons weren’t very common. Don’t get me wrong, they were really popular with kids, but you don’t see them as often as you do these days.

Those days, balloons were filled with helium, simple fact is that helium, being lighter than air, would cause the balloon to float up by itself, so you would have to hold it by a string to prevent it from floating away into outer space. I’m thinking they use helium because it cheaper than hydrogen, and hydrogen would be freaking dangerous once it is exposed to the atmosphere whenever the balloon pops. And with every 10 kids, 7 of them would most likely pop the balloon within 7 minutes of laying their hands on them.

But whoa, imagine the fun when you light the hydrogen with a cigarette lighter…

Back then, we only got balloons during fun fairs, circuses, or sometimes it was sold at the street corner. The thing to remember about helium balloons, you have to hold on tight to the string affixed the aforementioned balloon. If you let go, the balloon will float away to the moon’s atmosphere in 2.4 hours.

Here’s the thing about kids. 8 out of 10 kids will accidentally lose the freaking balloon at the first sight of an ice-cream man. Then the kid will throw a tantrum (about the balloon, not the ice-cream. Well not yet, anyway). Then 8.5 parents will be forced to buy another helium balloon to keep the screaming kid quiet.

In business, this is called return customers.

Anyway, like I said, you don’t get helium (or hydrogen) balloons anymore. One day, some smart guy said, hey, why don’t instead of getting an expensive and cumbersome tank of helium, I get a plastic stick and fix the balloon at the end? Then when the gullible kids, holds it up, it will SEEM like its floating, but in actual fact, it’s just filled with normal air. I’m a genius!

So that’s what you get nowadays. And without the need of helium, balloons have become commonplace. Every weekend, at every event, everywhere, they’re giving them out. This morning my daughters got a pair from this promoter wearing a miniskirt and a boob tube (thankfully, it was a female promoter wearing the aforesaid skirt and tube). I can’t even recall what they were promoting.

So what we have is dozens of those sticks and plastic holders where they fix the balloon. All lying around all over the house.

My friend uses them to spank his kids when they raise hell.

Ergo, I wonder if his kids are still keen to accept free balloons. Even if they are wearing miniskirts and boob tubes.