o_O

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8206280.stm

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20090302p2a00m0na004000c.html

"I chose to come here, rather than stay away. I chose to see for myself, rather than not to see. I chose to speak, rather than to say nothing."



"Between a high, solid wall and an egg that breaks against it, I will always stand on the side of the egg." Yes, no matter how right the wall may be, how wrong the egg, I will stand with the egg. Someone else will have to decide what is right and what is wrong; perhaps time or history will do it. But if there were a novelist who, for whatever reason, wrote works standing with the wall, of what value would such works be?


What is the meaning of this metaphor, of the wall and the egg? In some cases, it is all too simple and clear. Bombers and tanks and rockets and white phosphorus shells are that high wall. The eggs are unarmed civilians who are crushed, burned and shot by them. This is one meaning of this metaphor that is true.


"We are all human beings, individuals regardless of nationality, race or religion. And we are all eggs -- we are all fragile eggs faced with (a) solid wall, called the system. Take a moment to think about this. Each of us possesses a tangible living soul. The system has no such thing. We must not allow the system to destroy us. We must not allow the system to (have) a life of its own. The system didn't make us -- we made the system," he said.

After a long wait, my copy of the live recording and performance by Wolfgang Muthspiel & Brian Blade arrived in the mail, much to my great excitement (and slight fear)



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i've been really motivated to compose this few weeks. i think i wrote more tunes this month than the first 32 years of my life combined.

i've always been hearing melodies in my head, but this is the first time i've gotten down to understand how sequencing software works and be able to use them to add strings, keys, horns.

the best melodies often make me feel like i'm an astronaut waiting to go into space. its the imagination of propelling oneself into the blackness, seeing stars, gazing into the earth from above that makes me feel life is full of wonderment!

since i can never be a space traveller in this lifetime, i'm going to have to make music that makes me feel like one.



i wished i had someone to push and discipline me into doing all this earlier. everything would have been so much faster.

guess its the music thats going to come in a tidal wave then.

hw and i had a conversation last night about a certain artiste writing angsty songs earlier on vs the happier ones later on.

i remarked about how much i like his songs, especially the ones that sounded hopeful. not too high, not too low.. but just right about when its going on upwards.

it makes me feel like we're all truly blissful for a few moments, then we spend all the rest of that time chasing after where it came from, looking for or holding on to traces of it, nostalgia, photographs, acquiring something that holds significance for us from the past, toys, memorabilia.

we can't ignore both the past and the future. but here is where we are. so what do we do, where we can hold it all together? where do we stand, to ride out all the highs and lows that life has to offer?

I was looking at leslie's videos on youtube and forgot how impossibly suave and charismatic he was as a singer, entertainer. he truly was a super talent

i watched a film of him portraying a drummer who gets thrown into mental hospital, and he meets this "siao lang" banging on milo tins and experiences a revelation. that was so good.

gotta try to find some of that old leslie filems soon and watch em

I dreamt last night i was still using my minidisc player.

I was going about trying to install sonic stage so that I could rip tracks into a disc.

I was wondering why I always leave home with only my phone and not my walkman, then I woke up to the thought of all the things I had left behind the last few years.

today, i listened to music that touched me, music that i wanted but could not create.

it was one of the biggest reasons i set up a home studio in the first place.

i just could not get productive. the last few years, the best hours of my days were spent meeting someone else's deadlines.

i could not quit the day job, because i needed the money.

slowly, the home studio went away.




and now slowly, everything else is closing down.

i am watching myself peel away from some of the things i love so much.

i still get a kick out of watching others play it. when it gets unbearable, i indulge for a moment.

自己不舍得买,但身边的人拥有就已经满足了.





i am determined to end this cycle.

so, i am putting myself on the block.

somebody once said,

i have no intention to be a superhero. i just want to play my music, my way.

hear this: my life, is the life of a singapore musician.

i am not going to think of the end, just the journey.



many times, there are just so many tears that i could not let out.

i got so frustrated and i lost my mind, i lost my way.



i got one thing to say: to HELL with everything.



i can give up everything, put everything away. be nothing

做一个穷人也无所谓,所有的痛苦,这种无声的岁月我都包的起.

样貌操劳,整天跑上下 象一个疯人,满身的汗,没水喝,没饭吃,不用紧.

只要有一套鼓,就打到它爆炸为止!

I was shocked to read about Chua Ek Kay's death in the news this morning.

I met him several times in the course of work 11 years ago. My caucasian boss was embarrassed to have to serve him only english tea at their first meeting that she went out and made sure she had a chinese tea set for him the next time.

I learned how to make two good cups of tea from that job.

I thought it interesting because here was traditional chinese watercolour painting, as we spoke I found him to be rather westernized in thinking. I thought it notable he went back to school several times even when he got into middle age.

When I read about his cultural medallion award later, I was thinking "nice one, thanks to him now I know they give this stuff to down-to-earth fellows"

Years later, I saw the familiar brush strokes at Clarke Quay MRT and felt a comforting feeling.



I had always wanted to meet him again, perhaps by some chance. I didn't try too hard. Wanted to stay in the flow.

Now I can only offer my respects. Should have done this long ago.

( wired's rumoured macbook air )

[edit]
10 hours later.. it appears that photoshopped macbook concepts weren't that far from the real thing:




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staring at 80s music videos on youtube made me sit up one late night.

i saw some of it when i was small. i still am captured by their imagination.

it was simple and captivating, and i was always thinking of the thought engine that led to this.

i didn't realise it then, the 80s must have been rather seedy and turbulent. it really was quite dark, even though a lot of the music was bubblegum and elevator.


i thought the lyrics were functional, some of them hit me now like a ton of bricks.

i stayed on this line for awhile when i was a teenager - ten people may read the same book, or watch the same film, but they can have very different experiences and convictions about it.


thats the thing, it does not mean as much to someone else as it means to you.

and twenty years do not seem that long ago, especially when you play back that song and it still sounds the same, even though you were kicking back from school that afternoon and first heard it when you slotted in the cassette.

the other thing that i wondered, were i to meet someone from back then. would the feeling still be the same?

i loved you for what you were, and i hated you for what you turned into.

but u grew, as i did.

and your songs grew with me, as did their place in my heart.

accustomed to your bitterness, listening to niraikanai, is like hearing you in another place, brighter, calmer.

it is not summer easily earned, 37 years in the making. But it makes me grateful, knowing that you can sound this warm.

in the aftermath of the 2007 Transformers movie, i find myself looking back and reminiscing about the other transformers movie, made in 1986.

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while clearing out stuff, i found a huge stash of my old drumsticks.

stuff went through my mind with every pair, especially the older ones. as a keepsake, i'll write about them.


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on that day, it was obvious he was feeling it and raring to go at the audience.

i am writing this down because I know I'm going to forget some of it as the years go by. and i've had to paraphrase some of the words, because i've forgotten some of it already.

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i was super enthused when Sony introduced the Vaio Type G in japan and spent considerable time eyeballing it n.n

now several months later, they've launched it as the G1/G11 in Europe.



Popgadget has a pretty good write-up

the limited edition looks kinda nice too


what i like most about it is that it weighs a whisker under a kilogram (992 grams to be exact), inclusive of dvd-rewritable drive and a 6-hour battery life. i definitely would not mind adding on another hundred grams of weight for a larger capacity battery, giving it a 12-hour battery life.

my Samsung Q35 still feels heavy to lug around (its 1.9kg) especially during long days at work and school.

i'd certainly love to lug one of these on the go in the future..

the thing that jobs pulled out earlier... is a phone/ipod/micro PC of some sort



i was trying hard to imagine how it worked last night (there were text-only live updates) and this page show it all too clearly *.*!

the technology itself has a lot of similarities with this thing a whole bunch of us put up recently. things are mixed up, its going nuts... i wonder what all this is going to lead to..

Woah yuki is so cool *_* he turning gawth sia O_O;;



he had a hammered brass piccolo previously, i'm so curious how this would sound like being an aluminium snare user myself (not really into the piccolo thing though... but yuki is yuki i guess n.n)

more info here

[edit]ishibashi doesn't stock it yet...[/edit]