An interesting thing happened last night, while I was walking out of my office. I had to walk past this car park on the way to the exit. As I was nearing the exit, I saw a nice big red Lexus in front of me, to the right, reversing out. The car is moving such that I am looking at the direction of driver, though I am not looking at the driver. Suddenly I notice movement at the driver's seat, and realise that it's a lady driver. I did not recognise her, but she's waving at me. I think she said hi, though I can't be sure as sound doesn't travel too well past the car windows. Anyway, I nod my head in acknowledgement and smiled, and she drove away.

I don't think she's someone I know, else she would have stopped and talk a bit. There isn't anyone near me, so she must have been waving at me. But why is she waving at me?

Maybe she is some star and thought a fan is looking at her. She is just being nice and friendly.

I had an interview at 4:30pm today. I printed my resume in the office last night. I forgot to bring it home. So 1st thing in the morning, I went office to collect it. It was about 9am. I nua in the office until 9:30am before making my move.

After that it's off to Jurong East for a medical check up. It's a requirement by my company. I reached it at 10:30pm. A lady asked me into her room and asked me to remove my shirt while she locked the door. She have me lie on the bed and then proceed to listen to my chest pulse with her Stethoscope. Then she refer me to another place where another guy asks me into a room and ask me to take of my shirt and then proceed to take my chest x-ay.

After that it's to Bukit Batok Driving Center. I have my lesson at 12:05pm. I reached in 12:10pm. The lesson ends at 1:45pm.

After that, I got to rush down to CMPB to answer a charge at 2:30pm. I did not go for my RT last year. I reached at 2:45pm. Anyway, end up, I did not answer the charge because I did not brought along No 4 my uniform. The clerk rescheduled it to another date for me, but I can't leave yet as I am applying for a duplicate of my Certificate of Service. I waited 45 minutes.

If you make the maths, you will find that I have 45 minutes to make my way from CMPB to Orchard Road. I reached it at 4:35pm. Slightly late, but it's still ok.

After the interview, I went to the pub that I went with Art Beng and friends. Turns out that it's their anniversary tonight and they are offering free flow beer and catered dinner.

When I was still drinking, Shadowless called me to ask if I was going. It was then that I realized that I am supposed to meet them for a gathering tonight! I let go of the free beer and join up with them.

I don't know how I managed to go to all of them without being too late. This is a miracle. :P

Not humans of course. And not computer games either.

It's bed bugs. They had been infesting my bed for sometime. I had happily let them share my bed with me. I don't mind the occassional itch. You can say I am lazy, which is probably part of the reason. The other part is that I don't see the need to kill them when they are not harming me much.

But they had been getting from bad to worse now. The past few nights I had been waking up in the middle of the nights because of the itches. This is very bad. So tonight, I decided to do something about it. I don't think I killed all of them, but hopefully, I can have a peaceful enough sleep tonight...

The Forbidden City: Portrait of An Empress is back! I missed it the last time because I couldn't find people to go with me. Luckily this time, Amichdala agreed to go. Too bad Jerry couldn't come as he's on the graveyard the previous night and needed some beauty sleep. This musical play starred my favorite Singapore Singer, Kit Chan.

Synopsis:

A historical retelling of the story of China's Empress Dowager, the story is seen from the eyes of an American painter, Kate Carl, who is commissioned to paint the Empress's portrait. The Empress recounts her amazing journey from a young imperial concubine to become the Empress of China and the pressures she faced. The musical explores the myths surrounding her reign, from the controversial death of her only son to her ambitious tussle for power. Having played to 60,000 people in 2003, Forbidden City is Singapore's most successful musical to date. Starring Asian sensation Kit Chan.

It runs till 30th September 2006. If you have not watched, there's still time.

May contain spoiler

This play received some flak for not reflecting history correctly. The empress is painted as a good person instead of the women who caused the downfall of China as we all known it to be. All the atrocities that she has committed is due to a smear campaign by the British to weaken China during the Opium War.

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Supposedly, the history that we all knew was 1st written by this guy called Backwater. He based his report on a diary by some official in the palace. This diary has since been proven to be only a fabrication of Backwater.

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On the other hand, Ci Xi had asked 2 foreign artist to paint her portrait. 1 of them is Kate Carl, 1 of the characters in the play. She has written a book based on what she knew of Ci Xi. This book has been criticized at first, but this book is what this play is based on.

So whichever version is true will probably never been known. We can only chose the a version to believe in.

History is so fragile. We are only as good as the what the writers write about us. How good a person you are depends on which writer is able to reach a bigger audience. How sad.

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My seat is right at the front. I can even see the "orchestra" if I just leaned forward a bit. During the play, I can really see the expressions on the actors' faces. Real cool. The bad thing is that my seat is by the side, so it is not very ideal sometimes.

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The theatre is quite huge, 3 levels of circle seats and 1 level of stalls seat. Looks like the Star Wars Senate Chamber to me. :P

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There are 2 of these things around. 1 is on the other side of the stage, the other is right above me. This is where the Chinese subtitles appears. A bit hard to look at the stage and this thing at the same time...

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Overall, I thought this play is quite good. Nice music. I like it that some of the songs are repeated, maybe with a slight change in lyrics, but sung by different characters in different situations, to illustrate the ironies and what the characters are going thru. Good acting and singing by the cast as well.

The only bad thing I feel is that the props are not grand enough. The settings is in the Forbidden City, a lot of things can be done to make the backdrop very grand. Instead, the same structure is used throughout, with slightly different decorations.

The applause at the end is also quite good, especially for Kit Chan. I am quite tempted to stand up to clap for her, and then I saw someone did. Just when I was considering doing it as well, the rest of the cast came in and they gave a bow together.

The barflies were talking about this nice western-food-stall-in-a-kopitiam called Botak Jones. They have 3 branches at Tuas, Ang Mo Kio and Clementi. So when I have to meet Pi Elle for dinner to pass her some stuff, I suggested the Botak Jones in Ang Mo Kio.


It's actually at Blk 606, Ang Mo Kio Ave 5. Looking at the street directory, the nearest MRT is Yio Chu Kang. It's some walk. Got to cross a bridge, walk past a big car park, cross the road, walk behind a HDB block, cross another big car park, walk behind another block, and I see 1 end block 608. The coffee shop is at the other end.

There are a lot of people at the coffee shop, and I have to walk around for a bit before finding an empty seat. And it was 8:30pm. And Pi Elle arrived at 9pm.


We ordered a steak and a lamb. The steak is 200g and cost $13. The 200g lamb cost $10. Although there's only 1 person in the queue when I ordered, we have to wait quite long before our food arrives. There must have been a lot of orders before that.

The lamb is really nice. The steak is not bad, though I would prefer it to be thicker. But for that price, the quality is really good. Especially the lamb. I wonder how is their other items. They have a pretty wide selection for a western food stall in a kopi tiam.

My regular Friday drinking buddies are not available tonight. Instead, I met up with new barfly friends, Lex And Shelled. Interesting people they are. Then we joined the outlaws to go drinking in some ktv pub at Mohammad Sultan. They seem to know the shareholders very well. And lastly, I did not pay for the drinks. :P Oh well, some other times I guess.

I suddenly had a thought.

Imagine you have just been appointed as the chairman to a big company that your father founded. He has incredibly, against all odds, single-handedly, bring the company from nothing to a world renowned company. He's getting late on his years, and is no longer the chairman when you take over, he's still in the board of directors, contributing what he has to bring the company to even greater heights.

There are a lot of speculations about what his role would be when you took over. What would you do about him when you take over? Would ask him to stay in the company and help out, or would you ask him to retire?

I would chose the later. Firstly, it's for his own good. at his age, he should be relaxing and enjoying his life and not slogging his life for the company.

Secondly, it's for my own good. As long he's around, whatever I do will be in his shadow. I'll never get to be my own man. If we have a clash in ideas and I insists on my way, I will be unfillial. If I let him have his way, I'll be a puppet. And any good idea of mine will be seen as his.

And thirdly, for the good of the company. Times are changing. What works 20 years ago, may not be working now. His stlye of running the company may not be the best for the company after all these years. And, even if he manages to keep abreasts of the situation and still able to make sound judgement, he's not going to be around for another 20 years. It's better to get someone younger in so that they can learn the trade well and can take over in the future. I am not saying we should all kick out the old man in the companies. All organisations needs a mixture of youth and experience. A balance between them needs to be striked, to ensure continuity and that the company is run at a optimal level.

What do you think?

So paiseh. Had been nua lately and not updating much. Basically life has been good for me. Has played mahjongs for the past few weeks. I played 3 times and everytime I won. Though other than the 1st time, the others are by onli abt $10. But compare this to the beginning of this chinese year where I been losing greatly everytime, it's a very very very good improvement!!

I also been watching the new voting show, The Ultimate Comedian. I think it was quite nice. Please go watch if you can. :P

And I just heard that there's a coup by the military in Thailand. Tanks are blocking the roads to the Gahmen HQ. All TV channels are showing the King walking around. But supposedly, it's normal for the Thais. There's always coups. The King is, well, King. And Thaksin has pissed them 1 time too many, so they took the chance when he's not around to stage a coup. Ok, I don't know the details well. If you wanna know more, go read the news.

That's all for now. Do keep coming back. Thanks!

Recently, Jerry C, or Jerry Chang, a Taiwanese, done a rock version of Canon and posted it on Youtube. It was very good. He has since been appearing in a number of Taiwan variety shows.
His clip

It soon caught on, and guitarists all over the way is doing a cover of it and post it in Youtube as well. All of them creditted him.

So far, my favourite are these 3. Alotta people say the Funtwo is the best. He's a Korean. At 1st, he tried to hide his identify, cap cover face, etc. But he has since been unvieled in Korean variety shows as well.
Funtwo

Clip 2

Clip 3

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Argh!! My eyes!!





Argh!! My eyes!!

Changed hair

This article got nothing to with Slam Dunk. I went to JB this morning. Went KTV in City Square for 3 hours with lunch included. The song collection there is really huge. They had Jiang Meiqi's latest album, which is officially released 3 days ago. And a hosts of singers from Hong Kong and China which you would not find in Singapore's KTV.

After went to watch ... Shit, I forgot the title. Something Beneath Still Water I think. Nevermind, I'll put in the title when my friends correct me. Anyway, we went to watch this movie. It's some devil movie. Storyline wise, there's potential to be something nice, but the shooting and the development of the plot I thought is quite bad. The supposedly female lead is quite pretty, but she actually did not have a lot appearances. I won't recommend it at all. Don't even have to bother getting the VCD.

After that is dinner. After dinner, I went to dye my hair. My hair is very short now, and I thought I will dye it a loud color now and get rid of it 2 weeks later when my hair grows out. Cost me RM$60, which isn't too expensive. The hairstylist told me it will take about 30 minutes, so my friends went shopping. When they come back, it's only 3/4 done. And the color doesn't show at all, so they did it again. In the end, it took 2 hours. It's really red now. :P