Obama Takes The Stage

Barack Hussein Obama has accepted the Democratic Party's nomination for President in a fantastic speech acknowledging the will of the common American man and woman. I spent 45mins after I got home in the wee hours watching the video replay on BBC. It's a smart speech that explains his vision, how he is going to correct the flaws of the past 8 years of Republican US government, why his opponent John McCain isn't the man for the job, and how he wants to bring back the 'American promise' back to Americans who deserve better.

During the speech, I noticed a certain words and references he used. Post-watching, I threw the text of the speech into Word and did a Command-F to seek out these words.

In his speech, he used
- 'her' 11 times (no mention of 'him')
- 'daughters' 3 times
- 'son' once
--> there was a very strong feminist theme to his speech. He mentioned his grandmother's struggles, and female workers who should be able to stay home to look after their sick children without being at risk of losing their jobs.

- 'Kennedy' 3 times
- 'Roosevelt' once
--> These presidents presented Americans with a platform positive change and rallied the nation to work for a better future.

- 'Bush' 8 times and 'McCain' 23 times
--> Well, you have to remind everyone who the 'enemy' is. One main takeaway was "...John McCain doesn't get it. " and "Eight is enough."

- 'change' 14 times
- 'worker' or 'workers' 7 times
- 'American promise' 4 times
--> A great deal was said about how the average American worker has been sidelined by the current lawmakers in Washington - that tax breaks go to the big money corporations, that American workers are losing jobs to the Chinese. Obama's key message was Americans were still proud and able to compete, they just needed a government to help them.

- 'Georgia' twice but each referring to a different land area
--> It's an interesting time for the US and whoever takes office in November. Russia has been warming up to its new found power as an oil and gas provider in an energy-starved world, and took the next step in shaking things up by sending troops into Georgia, pulling out partially and recognizing two breakaway provinces. The current president Medvedev said "all people have the right to self determination", hence their intervention. (Personally, that's bullshit. Just ask him about Chechnya.). The other Georgia of course is the American state where Martin Luther King was from.

- He used Martin Luther King's words once without referring to the man
--> I think there is no way a Black president could run for political office without mentioning the reverend.

The best thing about his speech, apart from the inspiration, was that he could pronounce Iraq the right way.

Party Hearty

This pix about sums it up. It was Carolyn's birthday (the damsel in the middle) and she set up this shindig, ho-down, shebang, rocker rave at Wala Wala. On a Thursday no less. We had the good time, the band was excellent and there was cake to boot. Who could ask for more?

The rest of madness exposed at my Flickr.

Wah, Been Waiting Long Is It?

13 days since I last posted. Slack seh. And now it is 1am, and I am about to sleep. Not been in the right frame of mind to blog lately. That's content for a post till after 9-11.

NDP Rainbow

Guess what my mother spotted out the window just before the NDP started on TV? I had to capture it on camera and share the multicolour joy.

Hitler And The ERP

CW8, whoeever he is, has done a fantastic job supplying the subtitles on the following video that takes a unique Deutschlandish perspective on Singapore's system for controlling traffic congestion. Bravo!



(If it's offensive in German, I'm sorry. Any Nazi references, if any, are purely for entertainment and are not condoned. Seriously.)

080808, Toto, Olympics, NDP And Everything

So everything began on 080808.

Very much earlier in the day, I went to the Tanjong Pagar NTUC to purchase 60 sets of System 7 with money pooled from office colleagues. The lady behind the counter was unsure of what I asked for and shouted back '60 ah?' to let the entire queue gasp at my bad gambling habit.

When I got home at about 11pm, a little worse for wear from regular Friday activities in the office (though accentuated with the presence and subsequent frolic of a small rubber ball in the car park), I turned on the TV to watch the Olympic opening ceremony.

I think most people will share in my open-jawed expression of 'Oh My Goawd'. From the flickering number opening to the unfurling of the scroll to Li Ning running along the rooftop to light the Olympic flame (though the oversmiley little girl at the piano drove me nuts) was spectacular. And the fireworks, goodness. All over the shop. Only China could have pulled this off. And now the world knows for sure what the next superpower is capable of. (Am listening to BBC Radio 1 Pete Tong's show as I write this, and the host is asking listeners to put the Beijing show on as lighting effects for a dance party "It's like the biggest club in the world")

Then Saturday was spent watching men's gymnastics and swimming trials. I was jumping up and down for Korea's Park Tae Hwan and AU's Stephanie Rice sped towards the end of the pool to win their respective events. Australiasian Power seh!

At about 6pm I switched over to the National Day Parade, and for the first time I was half-hearted about watching it. It was a 'I've seen it all before' 'What else could happen?' kind of blase-ness. So I channel surfed between live Olympic coverage, live parade coverage and The History of Singapore documentary on Discovery (they showed Lee Kuan Yew crying in 1965 all over again, twice, and JBJ sellling The Hammer).

One thing about the NDP. The commentators were incredibly chatty and were describing everything they saw. "This event symbolises our resilience..." 'The lights represent our people's desire for excellence..." "The dance includes elements borrowed from our four main ethnic groups..." Come on, give us a break. Those lines seemed to be recycled from the previous ten NDPs. It really put me off. I liked the techno version of 'Shine For Singapore' though. The fireworks were, as usual, stupendous.

Too bad Beijing spoiled the market the night before.

And no I didn't kena the 8 million. Did you?

Men In Green

These are my army guys. Part of a larger, more insane group bonded together by green uniforms, threats to the nation and more accurately, year we were born in, we have been meeting about once a year since 1995. Although we've all grown up and have some semblance of an adult Singapore life, we still behave the same way when we are together - like a bunch of goofballs. Perhaps that is the thread that unites this group. That and all the crap that reservist life is made out to be. This occasion came about because Alex, the 2nd chap from the right, needed an escape before his first kid left his wife's womb to become a lifelong obsession.

We had dinner at Botak Jones, our version of Singapore haute cuisine brought down to the masse. Western food always conjures up impression of grandiose extravagance. The food was good, carbo aplenty, flushed with many a lemon tea and a margarita.

Post-Its & Note Fix

Ever heard of the marketing ploy where one company with one product line creates a similar product line to further cannibalise the market? For example, a shampoo manufacturer with 10% market share for one brand could launch brand two so that it ends up with 6% market share for both (that means an overall 12% market share). Voila, up 2%.

Today I went to get a pack of post-its from the stationery cupboard. Lo and behold, I found Note Fix. Looks alright and yes, sticky enough. And guess what? Note Fix is also made by 3M! Post-Its by 3M and now, Note Fix by 3M. The glue seems the same. Maybe they used 9% less sticky stuff on these. Probably also sold cheaper. I guess 3M has long found its 2%.

I didn't know Made in USA was Hecho En EUA in Spanish.

Introducing Jamie Lidell

Alrighty, it's been a while since I talked about music.

Jamie Lidell is a white guy with a soul sound to rock black folks. It's an easy listening sound, nothing harsh but upbeat lively at the same time. The beat is simple, smart and sometimes gets morphed with old skool electronics. Good male vocals are hard to find. And he looks like a nerd (that's now in isn't it?)

The first time I heard him was on Giles Peterson's show Worldwide on BBC1. Now Jamie's got an album out called JIM that's garnered some rave reviews and turned many a listening ear.

Elle:"The best album Prince never made... the freshest sound we've heard this year" Album of the Month The Observer: "A one-man search for the perfect soul song" iDJ: "a dazzlingly brilliant album" ***** Vibe: "Lidell makes retro sound futuristic, without changing a note" Pop Matters: "this material is an absolute pleasure to hear from start to finish... his optimism is unquenchable"

Youtube linked video for the single 'Another Day' is below, and his appearance on Jimmy Kimmel below that. Enjoy.

Don't Be Afraid - It's Just A Colour

Carolina has a fetish. Well two actually. The colour pink and Hello Kitty.

So her XX birthday celebration was centered around these two elements of desire. And of course, the rest of us paid the price of friendship. The following pics are evidence of our gargantuan sacrifice.

And feather boas itch! To think all these years, all these cabaret people couldn't solve that problem.

The rest of the sordid images are at my Flickr.

Koyaanisqatsi

This uneventful, warm Saturday night I happened to channel surf and stopped on MGM (channel 82). The title of the show read Koyaanisqatsi and I was intrigued. Weird name, I have to watch. There were stunning visuals of clouds, rivers, the play of light moving across the surface of the Earth, the raging sea, cityscapes, the movement of traffic and people, assembly lines, circuit boards, buildings being blown up, explosions, people on the street and at a train platform and much more, all set to music and singing. No narration, no explanation.

Beautiful perhaps even haunting visuals, most set at super quick speed with music. Sort of like a really long music video. The traffic and assembly line scenes, and those of people in transit and in restaurants made us seem like ants scampering about in oddly routine motion. It was also interesting that the nature visuals didn't show any growth or birth though, just the passing of things through time. I sat through the film quietly, though I smiled at the juxtaposition of people moving up a set of escalators to a hotdog assembly line. The timelapsed night time sequences are amazing too. Traffic at night is like blood through a city's arteries.

The end of the 1983 film has a frame that explained the title - Koyaanisqatsi means 'life out of balance' in the Hopi language, a native North American tongue. The term is part of the Hopi Prophecies, a list of things that happen before the world resets itself.

Not for everyone (my Mom went into her room after 5 mins), the film is worth talking and thinking about. It was nominated for the Golden Bear in 1983, and won stuff for the soundtrack. Turns out it took 6 years to make. Old skool cool in my book.

Here are the Wikipedia and IMDB links, and below, a 10min clip from Youtube.