Almost there...

My goal for the month is to blog daily i.e. to hit at least 30 entries and I've almost completed my mission. By the time I close the July 2008 chapter on this blog tomorrow, total entries for the month will be 34.

OK I admit there were a couple of lame entries.. I can’t possibly find enough interesting things to blog about every single day y’know :P

SINGFest 2008

MTV Asia Awards is coming to Genting this Saturday. Just across the southern border, Singapore will be hosting SINGFest this weekend at Fort Canning Park. I knew Travis were on the SINGFest line-up (thanks Yen for the info!) but I had no idea they were headlining the main stage on Saturday August 2nd! Anyone planning to catch the festival this Saturday? Make sure to pack along your brolly cos it's gonna pour when Travis hit the stage and sing "Why Does It Always Rain On Me?" Several years ago when they were headlining practically every major summer festival in the UK and Europe, it rained almost each time the lads started playing that song. I recall at one of the festival I attended, when they were playing in an indoor tent it rained so heavily that the roof started to leak! LOL

Hmm.. I wonder if they're gonna perform in their kilts? :P It's gonna be pretty hot playing outdoor in this weather. The last time when they were in this region playing a joint gig with Coldplay I recall Chris Martin stated that "It's hot as fuck in Singapore"

Travis are playing Bangkok tonight with Simple Plan and will be heading to HK on Thursday before SINGfest on Saturday. Hey guys.. aren't you missing out KL??!

Open X Mayday X Linkin Park

I've been watching this MV on repeat the past week. It's cute :) "Ober Jiang" is so adorable together with the rest of the 7-11 mascots. Aren't Mayday a little too old for this kinda stuff - the MV look like a jingle ad for a kiddies show :P

The band are playing a joint concert with Linkin Park in Shanghai on October 12. How cool is that?? Mayday and Linkin Park on the same stage! I'm sure they're gonna perform Kai Tian Chuang live.. just imagine what will Linkin Park think if they had the full sized Ober Jiang mascots running onstage during the show.. LOL

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RYAN!!

I almost forgot.

Today is Mayday Ryan's birthday. Mr Handsome is turning 35 today.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to a really great drummer!!

Portable Guitar Hero

The ever so popular Guitar Hero game is now available on the DS! Guitar Hero addicts who are always on the go can now carry the game with them when they are out and about. Ah my favourite guitar hero [click here to find out who] can now work on improving his skills when he's on the go ^.^

Music Man vs Cowboy Jay

The other day at a cpop forum someone had posted news about Leehom's "Music Man" and I made a passing remark that lead to a Music Man vs Cowboy Jay poll LOL. Some forumers poked fun at Leehom's new Music Man superhero image (someone had the cheek to ask if Leehom is gonna start wearing his underwear outside now..!!) and made comparisons to Cowboy Jay. As silly as Jay may look in a cowboy outfit in his last studio effort, that album won him several GMA.

Now then folks.. Music Man's latest album will be available for pre-order in Taiwan come August 22nd so make sure to reserve your copy at your friendly neighbourhood record store :)

Music Man

vs

Cowboy Jay

The Mummy boxset

This DVD boxset came in the mail yesterday

I had no idea dad was such a big fan of The Mummy till a couple of weeks ago when he asked for my Yesasia password to purchase this The Mummy Collector's DVD set. Dad has been anxiously waiting for it to arrive in the mail - he's been waiting for the postie daily like a hungry lion ready to pounce on his next meal LOL

The box is actually much lighter that I thought and much to my dismay as I had expected a mini photobook or booklet inside :P Dad couldn't have bought this at a better time with the next Mummy movie due to be release in the cinema in 2 weeks time. I hope I have enough time to rerun all 3 movies + all the extras

Amazingly I still have my ticket stub for The Mummy from Odeon Exeter (it's 9 years old!)

Tropic Thunder

This is the one movie I wanna watch next month - Tropic Thunder starring funnyman Ben Stiller, "Ironman" Robert Downey Jr and "Kungfu Panda" Jack Black, scheduled for release in the US on 13 August 2008. The movie has a list of star studded A-list cameos by "Spiderman" Tobey Maguire, Matthew McConaughey, Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise (in a bald headpiece and fatsuit - now that I have gotta see!)

Robert Downey Jr plays a black man in the movie!!! His character is a multiple Academy Awards winner Aussie method actor who's gone to great lengths to play an African American and he look so convincingly black that I almost fell off my chair laughing when I watched the trailer LOL

The film is about a group of primadonna actors filming a Vietnam War movie whose fed-up director dumps them in the middle of a real war zone! Looks like another classic Ben Stiller comedy

This video promo for Tropic Thunder is hilarious (in a really sick way):

I like the part where the kid tells Robert Downey Jr "...till The Dark Knight comes out, then you're screwed... Christian Bale will kick your ass" LOL

Guess who?

I chanced on this the other day - it's a certain celebrity's old class picture :) No hints and no prizes for guessing who

I am Open Jiang

The new Mayday song 開天窗 (from the upcoming 7-11 Open Your Heart album) is now out. I wasn't at all impressed on my first listen, but after several repeat it kinda grew on me. Ashin's voice sounds rather raw at the start of the song. It's a very light catchy pop song (love the "la la la la" bridge part!) and it's really cute at the end of the song when Ashin sings "Wo shi Open Jiang" [I am Open Jiang] (though it sounded like "wo shi ober jiang" LOL)

Open小将

F.I.R in concert

I was at Sg Wang Plaza yesterday afternoon and came across a F.I.R Malaysia concert poster at the ticketing booth. For anyone who's interested, F.I.R's debut Malaysia concert will be held at Stadium Putra Bukit Jalil on 6 September 2008.

There was also a Avril Lavigne concert ticket booth and the lady at the booth tried really hard to sell tickets to me. I was just browsing the seating plan at the booth out of curiosity!

Hotlink 365

Hotlink has just introduced its new "Hotlink 365" plan aimed at mobile phone users with very low monthly usage. For just RM33, you can now keep your number active for 365 days and not worry about being cut off.

Sounds like a good deal to me as my Hotlink number is a secondary line so my monthly usage is very low (am gonna get around to converting my Hotlink plan soon) Currently I have also a third line from HK - I bought a HK SIM card on my last trip so I could contact my HK friends without having to incur exorbitant international roaming rates. I still have a credit of about HK$13 left..

Actually I've thought of cancelling my Hotlink number cos I don't use it much. The only reason I have that line is because 3 years ago I needed a Hotlink number in order to redeem tickets to a David Tao album promo. Thankfully for last year's Mayday album promo sponsored by Xpax I didn't need a Xpax number in order to redeem tickets (just a copy of the JUMP Live CD) though I did buy a Xpax number for Leehom's Heroes of Earth concert promo last January. I didn't keep the Xpax number but I kept the Hotlink number which is why I carry two Sony Ericsson walkman phones - probably due for an upgrade soon. Does anyone know if the new SE W980 is any good?

looks pretty sleek but I don't like clamshell mobile phones...

Dig Out Your Soul

What a coincidence - my bro and I both have a Beatles' song title as our blog entry titles today!

"With A Little Help From My Friends" remind me of Oasis' "She's Electric" as they both have the exact same riff right at the end of the song. Noel has a tendency to incorporate elements of Beatles' songs into Oasis song and the man wears his "Plagiarist" tee with pride LOL.

Octopus' Garden is a Ringo song and is almost always featured in the end of Oasis' "Whatever" when they perform it live. When Noel sings it, you can be sure he'll sing the lines "I'd like to be under the sea In an octopus' garden in the shade" (they tend to alternate between "Octopus' Garden" and "All The Young Dudes") The line "I'd like to be under the sea" is also featured in Oasis' b-side "Take Me Away". I guess Octopus' Garden must be one of Noel's favourite song..

Though Octopus' Garden isn't a Beatles single, any self respecting Oasis fan would know it. If you're an Oasis fan you should be able to guess a Beatles song title just from the first note :P

I am looking forward to their seventh studio album, "Dig Out Your Soul" which is due to be released on October 6 [ooooh it's the day after my birthday - I'd very much like a copy for my birthday :)] Of all the bands I used to listen to, Oasis is probably the only (non-cpop) band that I still support (Little wonder considering that I've been a fan since 1996) I have over 80+ Oasis CDs in my vast CD collection - making it the most CDs I have from a single artist!

Oasis' Dig Out Your Soul cover art

Mayday's Monster is also an Oasis fan ^.^

With a little help from my friends

I enlisted the help from a friend in Taipei to pre-order the 7-11 album after I gave up on the so-called online pre-orders. I found two pre-orders, both organized by Singaporeans but sadly I had missed the first deadline and the second one could not confirm availability of the pre-order gift (then why on earth did they organize a “pre-order” if they can’t even secure the pre-order gifts??!)

With a little help from another friend, I've finally got tickets to watch Journey To The Centre of The Earth in 3D this Saturday. I sure hope the movie is worthwhile after all the trouble gone through getting those tickets.

To buy or not to buy

I'm still contemplating whether I should buy the "World Without Strangers" Giordano campaign tee designed by No2Good. Not that I don't like the design [IMHO, of the dozen or so designs in the series, No2Good's design is definitely in the top 3] The other tees are designed by various designers from across the globe - the US, Japan, HK, Taiwan and China. I haven't a clue who they are nor do I really care :P

The tee is available in both men's and women's cut. I don't like the women's tee cut, and Giordano's men's tee are far too big for me [their size S tee make perfect sleeping tee for me cos it's quite baggy on me] I previously had the same dilemma with Stay Real but Stay Real tees' cutting are far smaller than Giordano's (probably cos they anticipated that most of their customers would be girls LOL)

feeling suicidal?

Just another manic Monday

I hate Mondays and there's nothing worse than having to survive manic Monday at work after a late night. Since I've restarted watching The Shield and catching up Season 5 on Sunday nights (with back to back episodes from 12 to 2AM), I get no more than 5.5 hours of sleep every Sunday. Season 5 is pretty intense with the introduction of Forest Whitaker as Internal Affairs officer Kavanaugh trying to investigate and bring down the Strike Team. I hear the concluding Season 7 will begin airing in the US this September - will we see the end of Mackey?

Journey to nowhere

Yet another disappointing weekend. I could not get tickets to watch Journey To The Centre of The Earth in 3D today despite arriving at GSC Midvalley early in the morning - tickets for (almost) the entire day were sold out! (there were still tickets left for the standard 2D version though) and Baby J's efforts to pre-book the movie tickets online last Friday turned out futile so it looks like we're gonna have to try our luck again next week.

Coincidentally I bumped into Zelina while at Midvalley today. It was Baby J who spotted her (with her hubby, her two kids & maid) Funnily enough one of the first thing she asked me was "Are you going to Taiwan?". Actually she sent me a message at my YouTube account a couple of days back and I replied saying I wasn't planning to go. I guess she hadn't read my message.

Always open your heart

Come this month end, B'in Music will be releasing a 7-11 album (currently on pre-order in Taiwan) The album will feature amongst others, new songs from Mayday and Champion, and possibly Fish Leung and Ping Guan. Other tracks include cover versions of Mayday songs by Won Fu, 831 (Ashin's current pet band) and Cosmos People. I hear the bands are covering 戀愛ing, 終結孤單 and 疯狂世界. I look forward to hearing the other bands' rendition of the songs, which hopefully would not be another lame cover version (remember how Fahrenheit butchered 溫柔?) But given the fact that these are a bunch of indie bands, I think their reinterpretation of the Mayday songs should be worth a listen.

I've not had any luck ordering the album online at 5music or Yesasia - the album isn't even listed so I'm wondering if it's just a limited release?

On another note, has anyone seen Hellboy 2? I hear Travis' "All I Wanna Do Is Rock" is featured in the movie (albeit just a couple of lines was played) WOW. An old Travis song in a Hollywood blockbuster - the director must be a fan of the Scottish band and has taste in music. You can tell by the fact that he picked an old song from their 1997 debut album over their newer songs LOL Well, afterall the lads haven't had a decent album since The Invisible Band :P

Soundtrack to the weekend

It's Saturday by Marcy Playground

A great song to kick start your weekend... [though if you listen carefully to the lyrics, the song is about being sick on Saturday (ugh there's nothing worse than being sick on a weekend)] It's a really catchy upbeat tune with yodelling - yes yodelling.. now when was the last time you heard yodelling in a pop song? You may remember Marcy Playground from their first smash hit "Sex and Candy" taken off their debut album. This song is taken from their second album - I don't own a copy but I have the radio promo single CD for It's Saturday

It's Saturday radio promo single

Baby J is back in KL today - welcome back!!

Lost and found.. but not forgotten

I found my old Smurf figurine! It was sitting in my drawer beneath a pile of little boxes and band-aids. Oh wow it looks like I dug up an ancient artefact LOL Just take a look at the condition of the box.. it's all tattered and battered!!!

I reckon it's close to at least 20 years old. And here's proof - there's a price tag still stuck on the side of the box - anyone remember Kimisawa Dept Store? A long long time ago when the Atria in DJ was still a cool place to be seen at, Kimisawa was one of the anchor tenants there.

Poor ol "Rocky" Smurfie has not aged very well.. some parts of the blue paint seemed to have peeled off and the part which used to be gleaming white isn't white anymore! :(

the bottom of the box is in Deutsch - can anyone translate?

Mini Mayday

Net's blog entry today reminded me of a really old Smurf figurine I used to have many many years ago.. if only I can remember where I've kept it. Coincidentally, it's also a sports Smurf edition. I guess they must still be in production..

Nevermind my misplaced Smurf figurine.. I've got Ashin + Monster + Stone + Ryan + Masa (sadly, it's not the Desperate Housewife edition :P) figurines ^.^

Like a true fangirl, I've even the miniature versions of Mayday LOL. Even our resident Jay Chou fan has a bust figurine set of Jay, immaculately preserved and housed in a very expensive collector's case! And mind you, these are not the standard version sold at record stores - they are the limited edition numbered ones.. and guess who had to go hunt them down and carry them back all the way from Singapore?

bro's Jay bust figurines.. strictly not for sale

Project X

I felt like a secret service agent on a mission at work today - I was assigned to a due diligence team and prior to starting our work, we were given the usual routine brief not to divulge any information of our work and presence at the client's office (if anyone should ask) Interestingly enough, we've been told to inform the security guards at the client's office that we're there for "Project XXXX" to gain clearance into the client's office (and we cannot divulge any further information about our identity or where we're from!) Upon arriving at the client's office this morning, we had to sign in on an attendance list, but not to reveal our names - so we each had to sign in using a code number (call me Agent 3663 haha!) I've done numerous due diligence exercise, but never as secretive as this one!

The art of war

After a really intense bid war, this Mayday 小太陽 [Little Sun] promo CD is finally mine!! ^.^ Whoever it was trying hard to outbid me (someone with the user ID "bluesea02262****" - why does Yahoo keep their identity confidential these days?) – tough luck mate, I won haha.

五月天 小太陽 單曲CD

Along with the Mayday CD, I’ve also picked up a couple of other promos as they were going cheap (with prices from RM4): Kenji Wu's 將軍令 (for suda51) & 吳克群, Alan Kuo's 零 and Shin's Run 2008

Ke You Lun

the other Shin - not to be confused with Mayday's Ashin LOL

2 Kenji CDs (hmm.. people might start to think I'm a big fan...)

Harvest Moon turns 10

I had no idea the Harvest Moon franchise was this old! Harvest Moon is turning 10 soon and to commemorate the occasion, Natsume is releasing two new Harvest Moon games on the DS and Wii. More news and info can be found here.

Judging from the preview screenshots, the new game looks nothing like the old one and the DS version is finally in 3-D! If you ask me, I think the graphic in the old version look rather dated. In the new version, players can opt to play either the male or female protagonist - I'm guessing there will be more eligible bachelors in the new edition LOL

Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness

And with that, this blog's reading level is once again GENIUS

Genius no more

Last Christmas I ran a Blog Readability Test on this blog and scored a genius level.. but today when I revisited the site I only fared a College (Postgrad) level :( A notch down. Sigh.. it looks like the quality of my blog entries have somewhat deteriorated.

This site really works - try checking your blog readability level after each update and you'll see

JUMP DVD review

I watched the Mayday JUMP live DVD last night (finally! I picked it up last month in HK and it was sitting on my shelf for the longest time)

JUMP DVD on sale in HMV HK

(I managed a quick shot of this when the HMV staff weren't looking LOL)

I can't even begin to complain how bad the quality of the DVD is. I'm appalled by the flawed picture and sound. It was almost like watching a 20 year old concert on VCD :P The picture quality is anything but sharp (occasionally grainy) and the colour is BAD!! The colour looked washed out in places - it reminded me of Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan where Spielberg had purposefully create a "washed out" colour effect, giving the feel of amateur photography and realism to a war film. I do not think the flawed picture quality on the Mayday DVD is intentional [though they do share the same war theme as Saving Private Ryan] but rather it reflects the poor quality transfer by B'in Music. Shame on them for putting out such a subpar DVD!! In comparison, the picture quality on Leehom's Heroes of Earth concert DVD was razor sharp - hence it's availability on Blu-ray format.

The audio quality was also poor which isn't much of a surprise given the fact that their previous concert discs featured rather poor soundtrack so I didn't expect this to be any better. Would have been nice if it had DTS. Sigh.. Sometime ago dad told me that Rock Records put out very poor quality DVDs when he saw me watching a Mayday DVD (dad is an audiophile and has a massive collection of movie and concert DVDs)

All I can say is.. forget the DVD.. go watch them live - this disc does not justify their power live performance.

Another thank you gift

I received yet another thank you gift today from a Korean client who’s a fren of one of the partner in my office. Both her files fell through but I managed to recover a handsome sum of liquidated damages for her. When she came by this morning to pick up her cheque, she brought me a handbag from her own boutique at Bangsar Shopping Complex

Taiwan Beer Festival

Do you love beer?

Do you live in southern Taiwan?

Do you enjoy live music?

Have no plans for the weekend?

Head on over to the Third Annual Southern Beer Festival in Pingdong this weekend. It's gonna be a beer filled music festival with performances by Mayday, Aska Yang and Kenji Wu. Beer+Mayday+live music sounds like my kind of festival.. now if only I lived a little closer to Pingdong :) I hope Monster don't get drunk before the show.. it'd be funny if he falls off the stage playing while drunk haha. Mayday fans can rest assured that their lead singer does not indulge in alcohol binging cos he can't drink :)

I am reminded of a really funny pic that Baby J sent me of Xiao Wen looking "lost".. after one too many drinks haha.. what is that on his head?

Thank you cake

I helped a fellow office mate on her brother’s banking matter a couple of months back. It was one of those standard file that she could easily run on her own but she needed a lawyer to basically oversee the entire file and sign her letters. The file took a little longer than usual to complete but eventually we closed it sometime last month. Yesterday, as a token of her appreciation, she bought me a walnut carrot cake from Suanson. Much to my surprise - I have to admit that I was pretty touched by her kind gesture - I have handled many files for friends and relatives of office mates and bosses and more often than not I don't get anything more than a thank you note from them.

It just goes to show that a little gesture goes a long way

Thank you Janice for the lovely cake =]

Back to the ranch

This blog is starting to resemble a casual gaming blog

Since finishing Professor Layton, I had planned to jump back into some good ol court room action in Phoenix Wright 3 cos I am lagging far behind in that series. Having said that, I found myself back in Mineral Town harvesting crops. Yup, it’s back to Harvest Moon. This time I am playing the newly released Harvest Moon Cute – which has the exact same gameplay as the previous Harvest Moon I played.. except I now play a female protagonist. Which is cute and all but the lazy folks at Natsume kept the exact same Mineral Town characters from the previous game .. leaving our poor female protagonist in a town full of cute chicks.. with hardly any decent eligible bachelor.. (am still contemplating if I should court the old git bartender who’s old enough to be her dad or the cute floppy fringed blondie at the beach :P)

The last time I played Harvest Moon I managed to progress fairly far (this is one of those never ending game that seems to go on and on and on with the end nowhere in sight) When the old R4 became corrupted, there went my saved game :( Well, that’s what you get for playing downloaded games.

This is one game that require a lot of patience and time. It’s also highly tedious – with 1001 work and chores to attend to..

...and June becomes July

July officially marks the beginning of the second half of 2008. Time to stop and reflect on the first half of 2008 and the resolutions you've made in beginning of the year...

July is also the title of an OCS [Ocean Colour Scene] tune which was featured in the flick "Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" - anyone remember that? It was such an awful film that I have almost no recollection of watching it.

"...and June becomes July"

This isn't my fave OCS song - but definitely one of their better track - this one features a really great riff at the start of the song :) My personal fave is "The Riverboat Song" [yes that song with the really memorable opening riff] made popular by Chris Evans on his program TFI Friday [Thank Fuck It's Friday lol] And speaking of Chris Evans (no - not the Fantastic Four human torch Chris Evans!), I came across news in the papers just last month that he bought a vintage Ferrari for a cool $11 MILLION !!!! News seem to suggest that the $11 Million was merely pocket change to him... FYI, it's officially recorded as the most expensive car EVER sold. Gosh I had no idea he was so filthy loaded! I thought he was just an ugly radio personality :P