walking in the rain

Ok

This Ok thing is really getting to a lot of people, including myself. It’s beginning to appear in almost everywhere possible – in SMSes, during normal conversations, as well as in all my MSN chat windows, even with people who have no idea how this rubbish originated from. The scary part is, I can spend the entire evening laughing at the same thing over and over again. All it takes is for those two letters to pop up (with the first letter in caps and without a fullstop behind), and I’ll start cracking up. It’s crazy.

Anyway, for the uninitiated, the Great Singapore Sale starts today! To be honest, I’ve never seen Orchard Road this crowded before. Well, not on a weekday afternoon, at least. Gosh. Crowds thronged the major departmental stores like they’ve never seen a sale before. It felt as if everyone took leave from work today and decided to go shopping instead.

So I was walking around Wisma Atria earlier after sending my camera for repair at the 4th level, and I bumped into, of all people, SOUR FACE. My goodness. It’s been a long time since I saw her, ever since she disappeared after being on maternity leave. Well, she’s given birth, so I suppose she’ll be back in the office in a couple of weeks, perhaps. We exchanged glances, and my heart somewhat skipped a beat. The next thing I knew, I was heading for the exit and left the shop almost immediately. Craig, I know you’re probably sniggering quietly to yourself. Stop it. I'll make sure we'll go visit her when you return to Singapore.

Well, in other news, Shrek 3 is a totally fantastic movie. I managed to lay my hands on a few pairs of gala premiere tickets to the show on Tuesday at 9.40pm, so I went with my brother, my mum, together with Ivan, Wilson, Bin Bin and his mutton brother. Haha. It was a short 15-minute drive to Great World City, and I was glad I didn’t get lost along the way. The movie’s worth every cent of your money, so go catch it when it opens at the end of this month. :)

Anyway, I know this is really random, but I feel that there isn’t really such a thing as sharing secrets with friends, because when you tell someone else about it, it isn’t really a secret anymore, is it? It’s funny how you think you can trust someone with a secret, only to realize to your horror that everyone knows about it after some time.

In other words, keep secrets to yourself, because if you share it with someone else, well, not only will it not be a secret any longer, be prepared to face the consequences if it leaks out to other people you don’t wish for them to know.

Camp has been fun. :)

In fact, with all the interesting things (read: gossip) going around at the moment, saying that it’s fun would be an understatement.

Tuesday was probably one of the best days I’ve had in camp in a long time. Apart from the fact that I was busy as a bee almost the entire day, I spent some time having a good chat with my managers – almost all of them, in fact. I’ve reached the level where you can pop into their room anytime (well, almost), crack a few nonsensical jokes, and walk out. Or ask them out for lunch. Or whatever. It’s interesting.

I had one of the best lunches that day as well – there were so many jokes going around, we almost fell off our chairs. It was so funny, especially the one that totally slammed someone right in his face. Haha. I’ll never forget that one.

Anyway, the quartet had a great session last night @ Ritz Carlton, although I sounded really weird using my brother’s violin. Someone dyed his hair blonde and I think he looks worse than a prawn. Right, Sam? Hahaha. By the way, we’ll have a meeting real soon… with some ‘real’ rehearsals when we’re all less busy. :)

Well, before I go, I just want to say that I can’t please everyone all the time. It’s not that I don’t want to, but it just isn’t possible. If you aren’t happy with this option I’ve taken, what makes you so sure that other people will be pleased if I take another? Everyone is different, so I hope you’ll stop making unfair judgments especially when it comes to certain things.

Well, to put it simply, stop whining, and like I always say, don’t be an idiot. You’re already quite a loser the way you are.

More updates on the way. :)

So the entire MDC crew was over at Toa Payoh HDB Hub for the 20th MINDEF Pride Day for the past 3 days, which, as usual, burnt the entire weekend for most of us.

It has been tiring preparing for the event, but it’s been great fun working together with so many people over the past 3 days. It’s always interesting to have several groups putting up different segments at different times of the day – it’s like having different DJs hosting their respective shows at different timebelts of the day. Haha.

For some strange reason I had difficulty sleeping last night although yesterday was the longest and most tiring day of the entire event – we had to put up 3 segments in the morning, afternoon and evening, and I stayed all the way till 8pm to watch the show put up by the artistes department. I was having mixed feelings on the way home as well, and I couldn’t help but feel that the entire event was such a success, although, to be honest, it was nowhere close to last year’s exhibition.

Nevertheless, it’s been great making friends and forging friendships between groups, as well as watching all the different segments put up by different groups, including a few heartwarming ones put up by the artistes. It’s been fun exploring the entire HDB Hub, and after 3 days you realize that you know the place like the back of your hand.

Of course, amidst everything else, there are always lessons to be learnt, life skills to pick up along the way, and of course, people to watch out for. It’s never an easy task handling such a project, but I’m glad I was given the opportunity.

By the way, I have over 300 photos of this year's event. It's unlikely that I'll be uploading them to the internet, so if you want them, you can request for a copy.

Kudos once again to the entire crew as well as to all exhibitors of this year’s Pride Day event. I know I won’t be performing again next year, but if I get the chance, I’ll be back to lend my support.

Every now and then I’ll have the misfortune of watching really bad movies after reading online reviews and recommendations.

I was over at the fusion ensemble show @ Haw Par Villa yesterday when I hopped over to Vivocity (which was just a stone’s throw away) in the late afternoon to catch the movie Born Into Brothels.

I whipped out one of my several complimentary GV passes and tried to redeem it for a cinema ticket. Well, apparently, it was an ‘exclusive’ movie screening only at Vivocity, and for the first time, I was turned down (even though the terms and conditions of the ticket read ‘valid for all screenings’).

Never mind.

I had no choice but to pay by cash, and I was totally astounded when I realized that the ticket cost $10. I mean, look, it was a Monday man. Even a ticket on a weekend wouldn’t cost that much. Damn. I pondered for a while, then eventually gave in since I had some time to kill before my next appointment. Besides, people have said it’s a good show. I reluctantly whipped out a $10 note, paid for the ticket, hoping it’ll be a good show.

Boy, I was so wrong.

No surprises, actually. It happens all the time, and I have no idea why – everytime I pay to watch a show, it’ll turn out to be really disgusting. When it really irks me till I can't take it anymore, I'll walk out halfway, and this time was no different.

Born Into Brothels is basically about the lives of some poor unfortunate Indian children who are doomed to a life of humiliation, poverty and human degradation, with vulgar parents cursing and swearing half the time. It's unfortunate to know that the lady who filmed the show not only has really bad filming skills (the movie totally gave me a headache), but obviously has nothing better to do in life but to invade other people’s lives, probably thinking that she can bring them happiness by trying to understand their culture and teaching them skills such as photography.

I was sick and tired of hearing Tamil minutes into the movie. Also, the subtitles were of little use and parts that should really be cut out, well, weren’t.

Watch the movie and you’ll realize how silly it actually is. It’s pure invasion of privacy and I think it’s a disgrace for people to do such a thing.

The movie should be renamed ‘The Life of a Little Indian Girl’. Or whatever.

I’m going crazy with everything that’s around me.

I’ve never felt so worn out before.

There’s just so much work to do, so many shows to put up, so many people to contact, and so many things to be delivered to so many people every single day.

There’s just so much preparation for each and every single event, and so much unnecessary work thrown to me due to some really silly people.

I’ve been leaving camp past 5.30pm on most days this week – which is something quite rare.

I’ve got the highest number of off days in the whole music department but I can’t take off because there’s just so much work to do.

My head was so light today, I felt like fainting in camp.

Everything just needs so much attention – worse, most of them, immediate attention.

I have to juggle so many things in life right now.

I haven’t returned home for dinner in weeks.

My phone has been ringing off the hook… it’s driving me nuts.

I’m really very, very tired.

Give me a well-deserved break. I really need one.


P.S. Thanks to all who made each and every of my evenings this week so special – you guys know who you are. I’m sorry for being so quiet. I’ll post some photos of recent events soon. :)

I had a terrific sleep a couple of nights ago. I remember waking up feeling more refreshed than ever. I’ve not had such fantastic sleep in a really long time. And the thunderstorms that have been happening almost every single night isn’t really helping man.

I’m crazy over the song Fall To Pieces by Avril Lavigne at the moment. It’s been out for quite some time now (in fact I think it’s in her previous album), but I still love it anyway. After procrastinating for the longest time, I finally decided to empower my MP3 player with some brand new albums and songs, including Fall To Pieces, of course. In case you were wondering, no, I’m not an Avril fan. With the clever use of chords and progressions, Fall To Pieces is just one of those songs that gives me a sense of hope and stirs up lots of feelings inside me. I love it so much. It’s awesome. :)

A friend of mine was singing a familiar tune while I was doing some administrative work in the office. It was from a Chinese song that I have heard since my primary school days, so I asked him if he actually liked that song since he was singing it. He didn’t really answer my question but he asked if I could sing it together with him. Well, I told him I could accompany him on the piano if he liked. He was more than agreeable, and seconds later, we were in one of the practice rooms singing that song.

Well, apparently, he had broken up with his girlfriend, and that song made him bring back lots of memories. We started talking and he started relating his entire story to me. He kept asking me to play the song over and over again, and before I knew it, he was crying buckets. I told him to let it all out, because I knew it’d make him feel better. He sang the song with me until he couldn’t take it anymore. I felt sorry for him, but I was glad he was letting out all his feelings – I just didn’t want him to bottle everything up.

It was an unexpected one hour spent together with him in the room, and although everything on my schedule was pushed back slightly, I was glad I spent some time with my friend.

Speaking of camp, we have a new marketing communications manager, as well as a new director, which I have not talked to till this very day. I intend to remain anonymous till the day I ORD. That’s pretty unlikely, but I’d like to try. The new marketing communications manager is really nice, and I’ve been talking to her for quite some time now. She’s done a pretty decent job so far – by revamping the company website, coming up with a brand new bidding form as well as coming up with all the sweet little things like bookmarks and stuff.

I don’t know why, but I’ve gotten really close to Tammie as well. She’s just so nice and cute and everything. Haha.

Ben’s been driving his ginormous MPV to camp these days, and it’s been fun having lunch escapades together with a whole bunch of colleagues. I particularly enjoyed the latest one at Borshch Steakhouse @ Serangoon Gardens. Yummy.

By the way, for some strange reason, I got a chance to watch MediaCorp film for their upcoming Channel 8 drama serials 2 days in a row. Yesterday’s shoot was at Bukit Merah Central, and the one I came across today was at the pass exchange office at CMPB. Both locations are really near one another but I guess both are different drama serials because the cast and crew were different.

Yesterday’s shoot was interesting. The scene was about a lady setting up a roadside stall selling bananas illegally, and getting caught by 2 policemen who were patrolling the area. This 5-second scene had to be retaken several times as the director was not pleased with the lack of element of surprise on the actress’ face upon noticing the police officers walking towards her. The 2 “police officers” also had to retake their scene several times as they did not look stern enough when walking towards the lady at the roadside stall. And, of course, there were lots of waiting as there were several people walking by.

I have always been fascinated when I come across MediaCorp filming their shows. I never fail to stop to watch, unless it’s for some food programme or a silly game show at a shopping centre. I do not mind spending money on cab fare to my next destination, as long as I can stay to watch for a few extra minutes.

The last time I saw something like that was about a year ago – MediaCorp was filming Police & Thief at the now-defunct Clementi fountain. It was really interesting to see how the cameraman rolled up his pants and walked barefooted in the fountain, positioning his camera for the best angle and close-up shots of the robber, who looked really funny as he put on his rubber mask. Haha.

Watching MediaCorp film has made me think twice about pursuing a career in the film industry. It’s fun, but it seems more tiring than ever. If a 5 to 10 second shot can take 15 minutes to film (sometimes longer), then I don’t know how long it’ll take to film an episode, much less a full drama serial.

Maybe I should just stick to music, like what everyone has been telling me to do. Sigh.

Anyway, I was at Depot Road this afternoon, and I happened to come across Botak Jones, this stall selling authentic American food. I’ve heard so much about it on the radio and read quite a bit about it on the internet. Most people have said it’s pretty good. I really had to try it out for myself, so although I was running a little late, I placed my order for the Cajun Chicken meal this afternoon.

My goodness. It turned out to be a really bad decision.

First of all, I waited ages for my food to come. It’s not as if it’s the most popular outlet, or if there were many people placing orders. It took close to 15 to 20 minutes to dish up something as simple as this.

Secondly, when the food arrived (finally), I was shocked at the serving portions. The portion of coleslaw and fries were more than twice the size of the chicken. If I had my camera with me, I’d have taken a picture of it and showed you how pathetic it really is.

And the chicken? Was it succulent, exceptionally tender and bursting with the flavours of the spicy and fragrant Cajun marinate, like online reviews promised? Nope, not at all. It was more like a hard disgusting piece of chicken breast that had been kept in the freezer for years. Yucks. It was so gross, I took a few bites and walked away in disgust.

“Damn good food at a damn good price”? I don’t think so. Try “Damn f***** up food at a damn f***** up price” instead.

I’ll never eat there again. It’s unbelievable. $7 for a piece of shit – it’s daylight robbery man.