0137hrs

Listening to:



Howie Day - Stop All The World Now (2003)


I'm quite sick of a lot of things. Just feeling very sick to my stomach in general. For example, listening to too much Damien Rice makes me want to wrench my heart out. Anyway, it's become too mainstream, too common, too hip and cool, to listen to Damien Rice. As Hilary Duff would say, he is so yesterday. ;)

So what's today? Well, today I'm listening to this guy whom I first heard while watching Scrubs. (which, by the way, has the best TV soundtrack. Ever.) There was this gentle, yearning, but slightly melancholic voice accompanied by a single acoustic guitar. The song was "She Says"; the singer was Howie Day.



I've finally gotten hold of the album (it's kinda hard to find in your local CD shop), and it's pretty good! More of the same acoustic stuff... I like. You could probably draw some parallels with Damien Rice; I'd say that Howie Day (not to be confused with Howie-D the BSB dude lol) is Damien Rice for non-suicidal people, haha. Less depressing, but still a great voice. Go listen to it if you can find it. (y)

2313hrs

Listening to: Electrico - I See The Light



Did anyone catch Electrico on Bandwidth this evening? Damn I wish I had been there at Raffles Green on March 4. I've only seen them in action once this year :O Dan says there aren't any gigs planned in the next month or so. (w)

Anyways, I found this very, very interesting site called Technorati; it should be of interest to all you bloggers out there. It's sort of a search engine that finds the websites that your blog is linked to. For example, : the cool blue submarine : is linked to 33 other websites! But of course that's nothing compared to mrbrown who is linked to a stupendous 628 websites, lol.

But the interesting thing is this: there are quite a few sites I'm linked to whom I dunno who the owners are! Quite intriguing... wondering how did they begin to read my blog? Are they people I know. but don't know that they read my site (or have a blog, for that matter)?

It's a little disconcerting, but also quite an honour to be linked alongside people like mb and adri. I'm not worthy! :$

But to you who linked me: thanks. I'll be sure to start reading your blogs too, hahaha. :X Cheers.

0937hrs

Listening to: Toploader - Dancing In The Moonlight


I only read the soon to be 160-year-old local paper during the weekends now. It's too heavy to carry around school, and I'd much rather read the other paper that is newer, heheh. But yesterday's paper was, in a nutshell, simply hilarious. It's been a long time since I've read the paper front to back and found so many silly articles. If you missed the comedy and head-scratchers, here's a recap.

1. "Dropped something? Let 'snake-catcher' do its job" (news, page 3)

Yet another death at an MRT platform. What happened to the proposed barriers? The accident was also not captured by the surveillance cameras as "a glitch meant that it was not recording". WTF!

This also means that we'll probably never know if the poor guy jumped down onto the tracks to retrieve his shoe (as reported in Saturday's paper), or if he "slipped and fell onto the tracks" (as reported in yesterday's paper).



But don't people know they shouldn't go onto the tracks?! Even if there isn't a train barrelling towards you at high speed, the 1.21 jigowatts of electricity coursing through those tracks would certainly fry you! Be a Singaporean for once, people! Obey the signs.

Maybe the fine should be increased to $50,000.


2. "Confrontation in lift" (homefront, page 4)

A Clementi girl lost her mobile, wallet and bag after falling asleep outside her home. After discovering her loss, she took the lift down with her boyfriend. Two men entered the lift, and one of them was holding a wallet that looked like the girl's. She asked the man if the wallet was his; he said "Sorry" and returned it to her. He denied being in possession of her mobile.

The two men escaped.

Who's more stupid, the girl or the men?


3. "Girl who jumped off train at Kulai back in S'pore" (news, page 6)

Two little girls, aged eight and 12, travelled to Johor by train on their own. Somehow, they belatedly realised as the train was pulling out of the station that it was their stop and they were supposed to get off. So they jumped. The older girl sustained a blood clot in her head; her sister only had abrasions.

Their mother, Mrs Tai, who declined to give her full name, said: "They assured us many times that they would be fine. We did not forsee such an accident happening."


4. "Zoe's baby turns one month old" (news, page 12)

Massive. News. Hole.


5. "Studying spooks" (lifestyle, page 4)

Janice oh Janice, my fellow ex-Streatster. Your story uses sources from steff's CS108 project created more than 2 years ago! Now the whole world knows her NRIC number, lol. I'm betting that the Urban Legends column will not last beyond June.


There's more, but I gotta go off already, heheh.

1106hrs

Listening to: Liz Phair - Why Can't I


You know how sometimes you see things that just make you want to stop and take a picture? Here's the photo of the day... presenting, the new box office smash:



I Know What You Did Last Raya! *rotflol*

Apparently, it's a Malaysian movie. A synopsis from the Astro website:

"Childhood friends Fazli, Lan, Syahida, Yassir and Mira are now young adults who all make a living in the big city. For example, Mira (Erra Fazira) is a doctor and Syahida (Waheeda) is a singer while Yassir (Zamarul Hisham) is a car salesman. Although they’ve entered different professional fields, in the manner of the characters of the American sit-com, “Friends”, all five of them live in two nearby rooms in an apartment.

On the last day of Puasa, this quintet of pals gather in the boys' apartment to break fast. Over a rowdy meal, which is interspersed with the pranksterish Lan (Lan Pet Pet) flirting overtly with Shahida, the friends decide to drive back to their hometown to celebrate Raya together. Thus it came to be that the night before Raya, they head back to their hometown together in Lan's Mercedes-Benz. However, their carefree journey is brought to a halt when their vehicle accidentally runs down an old man in white and his goat, killing both.

With no one else in the vicinity, they decide to clear up any evidence of this fatal accident having occured and continue their journey home vowing never to reveal what happened. But strange things start happening on Raya morning, causing the five to get all panicky. Then, when they return to the city, each of them begins to experience eerie events plus get the feeling that someone is trying to kill them..."

Sounds vaguely familiar, doesn't it! Available at all TS Video outlets. xD

2343hrs

Listening to: Tori Amos - Silent All These Years


After the gathering, I met agent s. and we spent the late afternoon and evening in the East. I know I've said this many times, but I really do want to live in the East when I grow up! Hahaha.

It was a great day for taking pictures; all of the above have not been photoshopped except for unsharp mask. (if you dunno what this is, never mind.)



Even though she's lived in the West all her life, I suspect she's quite happy about being at East Coast Park. :X



The sun being hidden by these thick clouds. Nice cloudy day, not too sunny.



One of these days, I'll be the second local blogger to get a product endorsement: for Hand Brand groundnuts. Hahaha. ;)



The patented Pensive Look. Gee I didn't know my eyelashes are so long. Eat your heart out, girls.



My favourite shot of the day... anyway that's not me, lol.



Photo lesson of the day: bumping up the ISO will allow you to take such pictures in almost pure darkness without a flash. (y)

2324hrs

Listening to: John Mayer - No Such Thing

It's been a very busy long weekend thus far! My JC class had a lunchtime gathering yesterday at Marche... turnout was pretty good I guess, hehe. Must see who's the organiser okay! :X Anyways, as always, what's a good class gathering without pictures? So here are just a few (or more).



ben only ate a bowl of stir-fried vegetables! :O But only because he was going for a buffet later on in the afternoon, haha. Will tell you more about Ben in another entry. :)



tracy's (extreme left) finishing up her Master's degree and tutoring at NUS! THose lucky political science students. brenda is working at a certain "learning centre for rich kids" in the Newton area.



us: "What's up with the cap?"
esm: "Look like Taufik mah."

(Apologies to all Taufik fans. But if you are interested, please drop me an e-mail, haha.)



I checked in with lemon tree dude (aka Weixun) on how celebrity status is treating him; apparently the Careless Whisperer contacted him to watch 0104 (Royston Tan's short film showcase)!



I seriously have no idea what jianxing is looking at, haha. My stupid friends. :D



Me and the DHS girls... boy do we all look way better than in 1998! Heheh.



But amongst the catching up, eating and laughing at stupid memories, the best news of the day was that grace is getting married in December! What delightful news... and we're all invited to the wedding of course, hahaha. :)

Damn we're getting old, aren't we?

2359hrs

Listening to: The Glenn Miller Orchestra - In The Mood


It's a long weekend! To celebrate, we decided to watch yet another movie haha. This time round:



Swing Girls (2004)

From the producer and director of 2002's Waterboys comes a hilarious comedy about a class of Japanese high school girls who are taking a summer remedial class in Maths. Wanting to skip the classes, protagonist Tomoko (Juri Ueno) devises a plan which goes dreadfully wrong, resulting in all the girls ending up in the countryside, and giving all but one of the high school brass band members food poisoning!



Here are the girls all looking very happy (and carrying the bento [lunchboxes] which they were supposed to deliver to the brass band). Tomoko is the girl on the right in the front row! I think she's pretty cute and very, very funny. :D

As events develop, four of the girls (as well as the lone brass band member who wasn't poisoned) find that they have developed an affinity for big band music, and decide to form the Swing Girls (and a boy)! Problem is: they are really, really bad and have no money to buy instruments. And so they find ways and means to earn cash, which produces some disastrous and spectacular results.



I must mention this particular scene pictured above, when the four girls and a guy (plus a J-rock bassist girl and guitarist girl lol) are practising their songs in a KTV room, wahahahaha! XD



The film culminates in a band competition which the Swing Girls (now joined by the rest of their class, who sold their LV and Gucci stuff to buy brand new instruments heheh) competes in. The songs they play are big band standards like "In The Mood" and "Moonlight Serenade"... really cool stuff ;)



There are so many plus points to mention: for instance, the scenery is beautiful, from the beginning of summer in the Japanese countryside to the film's ending in winter. And have I mentioned that this is a really funny movie?

But I guess the best part has to be the music. As I've mentioned before, I haven't seen a film about music that I didn't like... and this is no exception! The only difference: everyone plays their own instruments! Watch how the girls improved from being unable to make a sound on their reeds to becoming a tight, funky big band ensemble. Please go catch this one, I guarantee you will leave the cinema with a smile on your face, and "In The Mood" stuck in your head. ;)

Visit the film website here.

Lester's rating: 4.5/5 stars!