Response From The Hill

I got a reply from Mediocrecorp (where every film screened is a TV premiere and good shows only come on at 11pm) about my email to them about the premature halt of the live broadcast of the Djokovic-Tsonga Aussie Open final. Basically, they said (not in exact words)
- they extended the broadcast to 655pm. Ahem, 10mins beyond the scheduled cutoff. That was so nice of them, wasn't it. They cut the feed before Djokovic served at set point 40-0. That point went on to 40-40. No one got to see it though.
- they took the initiative to do a delayed telecast. Hello, live sports is live sports.
- Channel 5 is for mass appeal, so adding in 'live' programming created implications on their schedule and “live” sport is an extremely complicated programming genre. Goodness. Since cable came on, apparently Channel 5 doesn't know how to handle 'live' programming. I suggest they cancel NDP since no one knows what could happen. I wonder if they are gonna show the Formula 1 race.
- they are sure to keep my feedback in mind in their future programming decisions. Thanks.

Part of my reply is as follows:
I can understand the programming pressures to cater to a large audience and advertisers. At the same time, it's important to consider the motivations behind viewership for 'live' sports. Perhaps greater thought could have gone into planning how the full match could have been shown live. If a 'live' broadcast can't be shown in its entirety, it is better not to show it at all than cut it midway. That's the point I am trying to make and I'm sure many sports fans would agree with me.

I got into ST online forum and the TODAY paper (PDF download) with this issue.

I am earning a reputation as a complainer or more colloquially complain king. Perhaps I'll end up in politics. Or just bitter.

Who's Da Best

Do you watch 24? What an amazing show. It is a feat of scriptwriting and ingenuity to have plot after interwoven plot falling into neat place every hour upon hour of programming. Woof. Whoever watches the show must give credit to one character for holding it all together. 'It' being the sanctity of the United States of America as the world's most powerful hence most vulnerable nation in the world. The man who catches every bad guy and all the bombs falling on the nation with both hands and feet is Jack Bauer. He is the manifestation of integrity, honour and truthfulness. He is so smart and imaginative that he escapes from any situation. He could be hand-tied to a pipe in the backroom in an airport warehouse and escape by climbing up the pipe, burning off the rope against the heat in the hot water pipe, pretend to be tied up as the guard comes to check on him, and beat the living daylights out of the poor fella. He's the MacGyver for this millennium. He even faked his own death to protect his daughter. Drama. Somewhere in the midst of each episode I catch on AXN, I would say "Jack is the best lah. Anything also can do." My mother would respond "Yah lah. Then how the show can make so good." (She also says "Idiot" when the bad guy turncoat appears.) Jack also has this little shoulder sling bag that is his magic bag of tricks - everything also got inside. A man and his bag.

Do you watch Ellen? The Ellen Degeneres TV show is one big party man. I have the opportunity to watch Ellen when I am on MC (like I was yesterday) and on leave (like I was in December). She dances with the audience. Would Oprah dance? No. Would Jay Leno dance? No. Would Letterman dance? He might if provoked. She has so much fun on the show and ensures the audience has fun too. She called George Bush when his daughter was on the show. She got the rejected bachelorette from the latest Bachelor episode to come on as soon as the final show was over. She got the Miss California who had to relinquish her crown because of an accounting error to come on and tell her story. Such current and sensational content. Who wouldn't wanna watch? And here's the best part. She gives away prizes and gifts like nobody's business. She had Ellen's '12 Days of Giveaways' and my god, she gave each audience member thousands of dollars of products - Sonicare Toothbrush, Nintendo Wii Sport, iPod Touch, Harry Potter Gift Set, Entire Seinfeld Series Set on DVD, Vers iPod Dock, Hannah Montana Spotlight World Tour for Wii and Disney Princess: Enchanted Journey for Wii were presented to each audience member on the show I saw yesterday. She is da best lah. Real life best, as opposed to fictional character winner, Jack Bauer.

Do I watch too much TV?

Djokovic and Tsonga Snipped! Abruptly!

I was spending a lot of time watching TV over the weekend because I have no life but mostly because I hurt my back. I was semi-prone in myriad positions on my daybed (perhaps this was the cosmic rationale for getting the lumbering piece of furniture) facing the 32inch fat TV. It was not too bad a time and it got better when I found out that Mediacorp TV5 was showing the Aussie Open Tennis Men's Singles Final live. Woohoo!

You see, I do not subscribe to the over-priced Sports group on cable TV. So a live sporting match was a gift for the Sunday back-broken sports-watcher. I joined the live match and I regret being late because it was the best tennis I had seen in a long, long while. Djokovic and Tsonga were so fast, so smooth, so much fun to watch as they ran across the hardcourt and sent balls flying at over 200km/h.

The commentators were making statements like: 'Don't take your eyes off the screen' 'Terrific tennis' 'I don't think this is a tennis ball, it's a ping pong ball.' 'How much did they pay for a seat the final? $200, $250? They've got their money's worth already.' (at 25mins into the final) 'You cannot take your eyes off this match for a second' 'This is startling tennis'. Seriously, I was gasping and squealing. Ahem.

At about 630pm, the channel from Asia's Terrestrial Broadcaster Of The Year flashes a super across the screen that states that they were going to show X-Men 2 at 645pm. They were going to cut a live match broadcast. That's it, no apologies. And they did it, at the top of Set 3 at set point. Like WTF.

Seriously bad planning man. Does anyone watch Grand Slam finals in Mediacorp, or rather Mediocrecrap? It usually lasts like 3 hours man. Damn disappointing.

So I did the next best thing - complain. Shot off an email to Mediocrecrap and CCed MDA. We'll see what happens.

No Birds Please, We Don't Like Them?

I was talking some colleagues by the corridors of the hallowed halls of where I work some time in the middle of the week when a topic of great contention was brought up - birds. Yes, those animals of the winged and flying variety. Someone in my office hates them. He is bugged by the 'ooh-ooh' birds performs on a daily basis in the huge tree next to our building. He is disgusted by pigeons and their apparent futile existence. He explained his emotions to great humour among the tea-time impromptu stand-up comedy session attendees. He is offended by the bird poop that ends up on his car. This I can understand, after all a man is only as worthy as his unpooped-on transportation. He explained that pigeons were vermin and stupid. I added to the collective fury when I said that pigeon poop burned a hole through my trousers when I was in junior college. Oh dear, what have I done. Good thing I didn't bring up being poked by ostriches in Sydney.

Such angst against a species. I think he eats chicken.

Sister Bliss-ed Out

This old man made it a night to remember at Zouk last Saturday. Sister Bliss came down to town to rock the joint and made an impression many won't forget. Sister Bliss is a UK DJ who is part of Faithless, a band she started with Rollo, Dido's brother. They together have made some most prolific dance music from the UK.

This was her first time here in 7 years when she made Zouk NYE 2000 a historic event. Woof. It was a long time coming but worth the wait. She's a crowd reader and has fun spinning what she loves. The quintessential DJ.

Temple and Lions

After a spot of dinner at the Tuckshop (the fish and chips are awesome) with Say Wee, I ended up in Chinatown where the POSB ATM was. It was near the Buddha Tooth Relic temple and I got this awesome shot. Nearby, there was a large gathering of people who waited for a lion dance competition to begin. Now that was a sight - men under heavy fabric who had to leap from pole to pole, with a brick's width of standing room on each, to a height of about 7 feet. The HK troupe opened proceedings and took a good 15mins to perform the feline acrobatics to the amusement of the children in the crowd.

It would have been nice if there was an organised group of tourists or multi-ethnic groups to enjoy the culture and effort.

Save Scrabulous!

The makers and copyright owners of Scrabble, Mattel/Hasbro, are trying to get rid of the Scrabulous application from Facebook. An application that has brought ME (4 pts minimum) countless hours of LEXICONIC (20 pts minimum) joy.

Anyways, here's what you can do about this TRAVESTY (14 pts minimum):
Read - BBC article on Saving Scrabulous
Do - Add the app - http://apps.facebook.com/scrabulous
Join the Save Scrabulous group - http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=4772916593
Petition - Petition Online Site for Saving Scrabulous
Email Hasbro - use the email tab on this page Hasbro Customer Service

May the FORCE (10 pts minimum) be with you.

First Shameless Plug of 2008 - Yogattic

I have a friend called Puay. She is one weird girl. We met at work in 1999. That was a long ago. Some time in 2000 she sent me to the doctors in the middle of the day because my back froze up at work. It was embarrassing and I was wheeled out in the cargo lift.

Anyways, she teaches Yoga now. She runs Yogattic. Go do Yoga. It helps prevent your back from freezing up. You will also get advice about being the 100th monkey in the cosmic expanse of monkeys.

Email - yogattic@gmail.com
Website - http://yogattic.com

Where's The Money Honey?

It's time to pull up those socks, tighten that belt and stock up on Maggi mee. I am sure most of you have heard of the sub-prime loan problem in the US. If you think 'sub-prime crisis' refers to low-grade steak substitutes at Jack's place, here's the simple explanation. Big bank lends money to small bank or money lenders. Money lenders offer loans to ordinary people with poor credit history to buy houses. Ordinary people can't afford to pay installments. Small bank can't pay big bank back. Everyone up the line is screwed.

Here's how chialat it really is. The following figures are the actual bad debt losses for the banks most affected by sub-prime loans. The total sum exceeds USD60 BILLION.

Citigroup: $18bn
UBS: $13.5bn
Morgan Stanley $9.4bn
Merrill Lynch: $8bn
HSBC: $3.4bn
Bear Stearns: $3.2bn
Deutsche Bank: $3.2bn
Bank of America: $3bn
Barclays: $2.6bn
Royal Bank of Scotland: $2.6bn
Freddie Mac: $2bn (So cute the name!)
Credit Suisse: $1bn
Wachovia: $1.1bn (Macam Dracula's bank)
IKB: $2.6bn
Paribas: $439m

Yikes. US recession? Asian crisis? No more trips to Bangkok? The other question - these banks got so much money to lend meh?

Thumbs Up For Flash-In-A-Pan Golden Globes

Yeah, yeah, there are many fans who missed seeing their favourite Tinseltown personailties flaunt their artificial asses and Botoxed jawlines on the red carpet. But here's the good news, or silver lining:
- Reduced carbon footprint. Fewer people, mostly journalists, drove to the event. No glamour queen had to board a planevto strut down the aisle. A lot less electricity was used. No animals were accidentally run over. Hardly a bush was trampled on (though some of us want to step on a particular Bush but that's another post, time and place. Ahem).
- Reduced opportunities for mayhem and celebrity madness and unwarranted media attention. Look at Britney - in jail and people actually support giving the kids to Kevin now. Do we really need the Golden Globes to make things worse? There would be awful Brtiney jokes. She might contemplate suicide. Come on people. Keifer Sutherland's already in jail for drink driving. No one drove home drunk at these Golden Globes because there was no booze to begin with. No bushes trampled on by inebriate famous people.
- Potential self-esteem/image issues kept at bay. We know millions of teens and immature women want to see what Katherine Heigl and Cate Blanchett and Jennifer Lopez would wear to attend the event. This kind of media exposure can promote unhealthy self-esteem issues in impressionable teenage girls who submit to anorexia, bulimia, Justin Timberlake, celery sticks and psychotheraphy to maintain their skinny bodies and semi-healthy minds. Campaign for real beauty people. Listen to the moisturising Dove.
- Credit crunch prevented. Think also of all the parents and working women who know would not need to plead with their banks for credit line extension to buy bling, blong and blung because they saw the hottest thing this season on the Golden Globes. Citigroup already declared US$16 billion in losses. Let's not make it worse ah.
- Stand made. The writers are not writing and are getting support from the actors who understand their plight of overworkedness and underpaidness. A little support is nice. This situation also gives local TV a chance to develop acceptable English content and not depend on the US for our TV fix. Come on people, support the local arts. Though Mediacorp sucks. The best thing they did last year was the Noose. I think we need a gahmen campaign.

See, so good right. Full results here.

Been To Morocco

Here's a plug for someone else's photos - a colleague, Isabel, and her friends did Morocco some time back and the place is just gorgeous. The pictures really get you thinking about leaving it all behind and discover some ancient foreign land.

Goodness, such ideas so soon in the year. At least wait for bonus. Please.

Check out more of the pixes here.

It Takes A Week To Write

I met a friend twice in a space of 4 days, and meeting him is like is talking to a cool priest who was once a druggie in search of some ultimate outcome. Though younger, he has become, I must say, very much wiser. More solid in his thinking, clearer in thought, more open in acceptance and indeed resolute in his decision to change and make change, I a little overwhelmed yet happy and proud of him. I told I feel like a parent proud of his child. Haha, sounds odd now. But true. Our friendship has been tumultuous and the ship had run aground some time back, and now steers between acquaintance and friendship on the basis of cheeky conversation, truth telling, political and religious argument, and maybe beer.

Perhaps what I am trying to get at is that
- one, seeing a person mature this much in a relatively short span of time is phenomenal and I bet you don't have friends like who have done the same. Most people I know have hardly challenged the purpose of their existence head on and perhaps fewer still have dared change.
- two, I feel like I have stagnated in finding a purpose of my existence. Well.
- three, one hardly gets to meet and attempt to fathom people who get you thinking and acting. He told me I am realistic, I know what what needs to be done, I seek approval from willing partners but waste time and stumble in getting it pushed through. Wow. I smile at this truth bubbling under the veneer of confidence.
- four, I'm not letting this go and I hope he doesn't too. We will drink beer again.

Thanks man.

Sitting On An Idea

Well this was a refreshing suprise. Something different from noise from boombox-capable handphones, people trying out 39 ringtones at full volume and spinning children wailing for attention. I didn't ask if he brought it with him just this once or whether he was smart in some ways all the time.

We The Robots

This is so funny! You have to go read these We The Robots comic strips on a regular basis. They will lighten up your life immeasurably.


Thanks Edalene.

Marvellous Mee Goreng @ Newton #79

I was asked to join Jo and her bf's Amos' frens for supper at Newton. I was introduced subsequently to Al-Noor Biasa (Stall 79) as members of the table slurped the mutton soup, dunked bread into the spicy broth, and gnawed on tulang for meat and marrow. Aiyaiyai. This stall is indeed a gem. The mee goreng is bestness.

And there is much history and makan stories to swap when I am surrounded by makan afficionados. This Indian Muslim stall once served food in Beach Road and now is here. We talked about Norris Road chappatis and bendi sabji, Northpoint Indian food, and Kallang mutton soup. The best briyani in the world has been lost though. Last eaten in Manchester. Yes, the Manchester in England. Singaporeans should go to Changi Village Hawker Centre and search in the same lane as the mediocre International Nasi Lemak (yes, over-hyped!) for Indian men who sell briyani and only briyani.

Go. Now.

Happy Birthday Shah

Did you know Wine Bar is 1-for-1 for law and media and Citibank card holders on Friday nights? That just makes it so much easier for some folks to test hospital response times and anti-rejection drugs for liver transplants (thinking way too far ahead).

And how was I to know Wine Bar wised up and served Sex On The Beach in pairs?



Hic! And off to Newton for 3am mee goreng!

One Man's Predictions For 2008

Was out walking on Tuesday when I tuned into the BBC to hear a certain Mark Anderson from Strategic News Service predict some of the following for 2008:
1. User's revolt - people are getting pissed with adverts on sites they commonly use to get other information or do something else. One example is Facebook. Advertiser's will realise that their ROI models aren't working and pull out. The users will cheer, site owners will cry and there could be another bursting of the Internet bubble.

2. The web will be everywhere - So much so you will come to expect it everywhere. In his terms "disappear". Users will come to expect the availability of Internet access alongside their mobile phone and TVs. You will be able to get content anywhere and everywhere you need it. This will cause changes in the way companies spend their ad money - it will become more targeted.

3. High-def will drive bandwidth expansion - People want high quality content, whether it is bought or self-owned, at their fingertips. Bandwidth will have to expand to make this happen or else users will be upset that they can't watch high-def video on their PCs. Terabyte speeds are being tested in the UK for household use now.

4. PCs will become handheld - He reckons 7" x 9" is the good right size.

5. Alternative energy will grow - The world knows what's happening and users will start to make choices that reflect this trend. Already electric cars are popping up in the news and China will roll out a car that seats two, speeds at 80km/h and does 120km on a single charge, from a 3-pin power socket no less. I want a car like that.

Read the rest of his predictions or watch the video here.

Adios 2007 Part 2ish

Well there wasn't one. Or in other words, New Year's happened without much fanfare, not in my neck of the woods if you know what I mean. Sunday 30 Dec was spent with JC mates then at Nana's for Pictionary, bubbly and a nap at 4am. There was great humour and frustration at Pictionary but that has to be another entry dedicated to the ballpoint arts. I slept on the couch and left for breakfast with Gerald at Tiong Bahru Market at 6am.

My contact-lensed eyes were crying for moisture while we searched for sustenance. And at TBM as the sun rises, food is chwee kueh. There was only one coffee stall open. Talk about early bird getting the worm. Also I was eyeing the lady making the peanut pancake and made the dash to buy slices 1 and 2.

That's it. I stayed home and have yet to leave Woodlands. Didn't wanna face the crowds and transport problems and germs. Cake at 10pm and fireworks on TV.

Happy New Year.

15 Years Ago...

A bunch of kids passed the A-levels. We were the graduating class of 2SO1B (what a name) 1992 RJC. Yeah, yeah, I was from RJ. (I am sure some people are booing and jeering already. I have had 'adverse' reactions from some people, believe me.)

On Sunday, Poh Choo arranged for us to meet again. It was a good effort and quite a number of folks still on the island turned up. Sock Hoon was back from time Stateside and it was nice to know she stopped working to look after her two kids. Kok Keong and Huiting announced that they were travelling a great distance each day between work and their new home in Simei. Daniel paid the bill with 20% off. Anselm realised that we all still looked pretty much the same, as we talked while waiting for a bus. Chuen Nen brought wife and kid. Kin Leong and Sonia talked quite a bit.

We talked about almond jelly esters, battery explosions during the Physics Lab finals, children, Sengkang, construction sites and enbloc sales. All this over Jap food.

Wow, 15 years. It's been quite some time. Though not everyone showed up, we sure talked about them. Good meeting up.

Michael Clayton

I saw Michael Clayton on the last Saturday of the year. I suppose it was patriotic to perform the Singaporean duty of theatrical commerce to sum up the year. (We have the world record for the highest average number of films watched a year - 12) So it was $9.50 down for a seat among four at Orchard Cineleisure.



Michael Clayton is a strong, smart film. Strong because there are actors whose faces and actions and voices speak volumes with each utterance and movement. Smart because the plot is intelligent yet freakily plays with time and coincidence and divine intervention. The cinematography focuses on the movements and expressions. Nothing wide and panoramic, mostly close and gripping. The lines are powerful, a little overwhelming at the start when the audience is unsure of next steps of anticipation.

You have to pay attention to the lines. There is wit and wisdom and sarcasm and sobriety. The plot doesn't unfurl quickly but surprisingly the movie doesn't bore too quickly and you get it once certain things blow up. Yes there is one explosion. Well two. Consecutively. The links between events that seem inconsequential somehow come to the fore when the time comes. It's a little unnerving yet mind-blowing.

George Clooney is good. Watch his face and his delivery. When he's mad you know. Tom Wilkinson is great too. Tilda Swinton, the Cate Blanchett lookalike, works up a sweat (haha! you'll know what I mean when you watch the show) and proves to us all the women in power can be nasty too (if you haven't already found out).

Go watch Michael Clayton if are in the mood for an intelligent film that's good all the way to the end. The official site is linked here.

We ended up at Bencoolen Street for two kosongs and teh tarik kurang manis. And Happy Birthday Georgina.