String Quartet.

There's something so transparent about this quartet. =X

Rent A Person

Another video from the same dude that did Validation. I would advise a M18 for adult themes though. Or maybe, just PG, in lieu of how open today's society is. I wouldn't recommend you to watch this, if you're dining or chewing something.

Sandstorms.

Life's like sandstorms.
They come suddenly and fade off
into oblivion as quickly as they
surface.
And you think they've left nothing
behind, til you look down and see colorful
grains of sand.
Their remnants.
memories.
Artifacts to be placed down memory lane.

Cool Advert.

Nothing like a trip back in time, just for beer eh. :)

Songs.

I don't know about you, but recently, I realize there are more male singers singing covers originally sung by female singers, and vice versa. There was Run by Leona Lewis, that was originally by Snow Patrol. (I think.) Then, there's I Told You So, originally by Randy Travis and now by Carrie Underwood. It's so bizarre, they might as well start writing songs for the other gender instead.

Not that I'm a sexist at heart, or strictly regimental and believe if you're a male songwriter, the song you write can only be sung by males, or somewhere along that line, but surely each song is meant to express a certain degree of affection and feeling meant for a certain range of voice. Besides, if you're popular, and you start to simply do covers, wouldn't that mean that it's cheaper to simply pay royalties instead of writing and composing your own songs.

Perhaps, they should think about reviving the oldies with the new artistes instead. Imagine Leona Lewis singing I Can't Help Falling In Love by Elvis Presley. Or David Cook singing Chapel of Love.

Smile

This might take awhile to load, and it might be awhile to watch, like around 16 minutes. But it's definitely worth your time. And, remember to smile :)

As gentle as the deer.

The grass glistens as the deer cocks her head
and listens.
A gentle rustling of the leaves
but along with the wind
strange new sounds carry along.

A human voice!

She leaps and bounds
tramping and treading
agile with minimal disclosure
to safety and to yonder,
to seek refuge within
fawn and fauna.

And many miles above her,
beyond what her mind can comprehend,
a rainbow lights up the sky,
as gentle as the rustling of the leaves
as gentle as the cub cuddling with its mother
as gentle as the native tending to his horse.

Swear and struck by lightning, but lives!

The next time you swear to God, just be careful. You might get struck by lightning. Also, don't hold a metal rod into the sky.

On Aug 26, in Fujian Province, China, an upset Wong decided to visit his friend Xu’s house to collect an unpaid debt.

3 years ago Xu borrowed 500 yuen (about $70) from Wong for his wedding and never paid the money back.

Wong showed up at Xu’s house with a bat in hand demanding that Xu pay back the money he had borrowed. Xu then pulled out a metal rod he had laying around to use in defense if Wong decided to attack him.

Xu denied that he had borrowed any money from Wong and asked him to prove that there was a debt to be owed.

Wong finally “told him that if he dared to swear to God that he didn’t owe me the money, then I would waive his debt.”

Xu, obviously seeing a way out of paying the debt, then pointed the pole straight up in the air and shouted “if I ever borrowed money from Wong, let me be struck by lighting.”

Less than a minute after shouting those words, lightning struck the outstretched pole and passed through into Xu’s body.

Xu was taken to the hospital but survived the incident.

No mention as to whether this proves Xu did indeed borrow the money or if he has any plans to now pay Wong the money he owes.

http://www.weirdasianews.com/2008/09/21/man-actually-struck-by-lighting-for-swearing-to-god/

Mirror.

Once there were was a beautiful glass mirror. And in it, its owner saw the most beautiful face she saw. Her full beauty, she felt, was complemented by the mirror, and only with it, was she perfect and made whole.

Then, one day, the mirror shattered. (Perhaps the beauty was too much to behold. Who knows?).

And the owner wept bitterly. For no more could she see her beauty. And with no other did she feel more compatible with.

But instead of moving on, and getting another mirror, she chose to stay by the shattered pieces, holding on to each piece dearly, not letting go.

And thus, the mirror that she was meant to have bought, remains, dusty, unused and left on the shelf.

Nothing

Nothing sweeter than a bottle of lychee juice
Nothing purer than the color of white.
Nothing gentler than a sheep's soft baa
Nothing cleaner than a string of a guitar.

Sound Asleep Pillow

If you need to listen to music, before dreamland grants you a one-night visa entry, you might consider getting a pillow. Not any ordinary pillow though; just the Sound Asleep Pillow.

Self-explanatory, one would think. Just lie on the pillow and *poof* one falls asleep while listening to sounds. But hey! Snoring is a sound too!

And that's the beauty of this pillow. You don't have to plug in any supposedly- comfortable-and-canal-fitting ear phones just to get a good night's sleep, and wake up with sore ears.

Simply connect your media player device to the pillow, and instantly fall asleep, with surround sound of your most soothing and relaxing melodies.

Sound Asleep Pillow

Don't bother me.

The train rumbles on as she gazes out of the window. Dressed in a pink top with an ironic statement, and a pair of yellow shorts, with a bottle of DOM in a clear plastic bag at her feet.

Then, for no visible rhyme or reason, a tear wells up in her right eye, till gravity takes control and gently over the cheek it rolls. Her hand rises and swipes it away swiftly, but not quick enough for the tear that rolls down from the other eye.

And below all these, the statement printed on her shirt - Don't Bother Me.


This I witnessed with my very eyes and ascertain it to be true.

Truly,
Ran.

Cool.

If only SHWO would do something like this for their 10th anniversary for Impressions. It would be foremost and utmostly cool.

Need to, or want to?

If you attend a birthday celebration of a friend you've known for a long time, do you go because it's basic courtesy and as an expression of friendship political peace and stability, or do you go because you want to?

Need to or want to?

Noise, cease thy existence.

Cars honk, then screech and crash. People yakking on their phone, announcing to the world their grumbles. The dude in the next cubicle blasting his techno remix as you struggle to do that math problem, or complete that last summary for your thesis. Noise can be a hell of a problem, in this busy world we live in, ain't it?

Now, there's some respite. And it would probably be cheaper than the $100,000 you spend annually on your sabbatical to the middle of the rainforest.

Some cool dude invented an Iphone application called the SoundCurtain. Instead of trying to block out all unwanted sounds, what the app does is to convert the noises into beautiful music. Kinda like an ugly duckling into Prince Charming. Or something like that.

The app uses the microphone on the Iphone headset to 'listen' to noise and then using advanced algorithms, converts it to soothing and ambient music. Cool, don't cha think?

That kid screaming at the top of his voice could sound just like a cat meowing or those aunties gossiping in loud and audible whispers, could merely sound like the waves gently crashing at the beach. Or a million birds chirping with water cascading behind.

Story Link

Colors, and a companion of our own.

Waves go crashing
And fish come flying.
Cars go flowing
as people pass me by.

The skies are green as
the blue wind blow
the orange petals above
the red grass.

The guy dressed in pink
is not much feminine as compared to
the girl in blue
is not much masculine.

Enjoyment of time together,
the shedding of the skins
that we put on every day.
To be open, warm and free
which is how we should be
But we aren't.

And so we are only,
with a companion.

Fallacy.

The fallacy of humans.
To judge others and ignore the flaws within.
Superior inferior
Like interior and exterior
But without architecture.

Harmonica.

Nothing like a good rousing harmonica to jolt one into reverie. Nearly makes me feel like whipping out my ol' harmonica and doing just the same. Nearly.

Hilarious

80s / 90s

You know it's not a matter of feeling old or getting nostalgic, but a question of how old one is, when one recognizes / hums / sings along to tunes from the 80s and the 90s.

As easy as a blink.

Be careful the next time you flirt with a wink or a smile, Womanizer by Britney Spears might metamorphosis to Whatever You Like by T.I.

A new Japanese gadget allows its users to control electronic devices by detecting changes in your facial expressions. Any stranger passing you by would assume it to be a normal pair of earphones. Inside your ear, however, is a set of infrared sensors that measures minute movements caused by various facial movements.

So the next time your mahjong kaki starts smiling suddenly, or winks repeatedly, it's not that she has a shi san yao. She's probably just changing songs.

http://www.physorg.com/news155728914.html

Casual Games

I had the opportunity to sample two casual games recently, Youda Farmer and Ice Blast. One's farmed a flop and the other blasted off rather nicely. I always found casual games more captivating than hardcore games. Their ability to not be moulded into genres but rather in specific categories, like Match 3 or Hidden Object.

That said, I was a tad disappointed in Youda Farmer. I played their previous game, Youda Camper, a mix of strategy and time management, and found it be rather innovative. After all, which game allows you to run a campsite?

The aim of the game is to garner enough crops in the shortest time possible, and then sell it at the town center as soon as possible. A simple point-and-click game that would require no brains. The only thing it exercises would be your finger.

The game, however, brought up a flaw of casual games which is its limited levels. There's only so many levels till you complete the game, and even though the price for a casual game could be as low as one quarter of a hardcore game, a hardcore game lasts longer than any casual game.

Perhaps somebody should come out with a casual game rental system. Why not charge a lifetime membership fee, and then be given the chance to play all games within the database? Okay, so maybe the game developers won't earn much. So, insert a variety of options to ensure that the game developers get some profit as well, say, a time cap on each gameplay, or only games within the same category can be played or cap the number of games to be downloaded in a particular frame of time.

The other game that proved rather satisfying for me was Ice Blast. In it, you control three female heroes with each a unique talent for well, blasting ice, as the name suggests. No surprise there, but what makes this game stand out is the emphasis on strategy and time management and not a game of fastest-clicker-first.

Well, if you wanna have your sample of both games, you can download the trials at the various links:

http://www.bigfishgames.com/download-games/4707/youda-farmer/index.html
http://www.bigfishgames.com/download-games/4160/ice-blast/index.html

Cheers,
R@n.

Flealow.

"Flealow, flealow" he said. "You come here, put to reverse gear then flealow back to thats line."

It took me awhile to realize he meant free roll.

One can only use the half the time to learn the basics of driving, since the other half is spent deciphering the words spoken.

flawed logic

If people say that all the good ones are taken
and the only ones left would be the singles
and nobody is the right one
so the good ones are the right ones
so the right ones would be the singles no?

Flawed logic.

What if...

What if you found a girl pretty
and said so
and people mistook it as you had a crush on her
and teased you
though you got mesmerized by her looks.

And during the next few years
occasionally you would wonder what happened to her
where she went and how she was doing

And nine years later
you see her in a facebook picture
of a friend from primary school
who added you
from a godsister since primary school
whom letters were exchanged
for seven years

Peanut Butter Slumdog Millionaire Mashup

Gmail and uploading

Well, I only just realized this cool thing a while ago while uploading a file via Gmail. Ain't sure if you'll call it a function or a bonus or something pleasing to the eyes.

Gmail now shows the status of your file being uploaded! It's cool, though I think they should have thought of it sooner. Gone are the days where I'll upload huge files and sit and stone at my desk waiting for it to be completed, not even sure if it's even being uploaded.

Now that they've done it, me thinks Hotmail will soon follow suit. Sorry, I meant Windows Lived. Sorry, Windows Live.

Imagine.

Nothing like a rousing enthralling bollywood dance scene to end off a movie. But this is always the case is it no? A bollywood movie without a dance scene is like a jackie chan movie without fights or a horror movie without blood. So what's the fuss all about?

Some say the dance scenes is anti-climatic to the movie. Or perhaps they aren't used to bollywood movies. I bet, if the film was an English one, made in America, the ending would probably be a marriage ceremony between the two main leads, or the movie would end with a shot of the evil dude *spoiler alert* still being alive despite being shot. 'Cause that's how most American films work. They try to produce sequel after sequel. But bollywood movies are short and sweet. Romance, action and dance.

Perhaps we could produce our own bollywood movie, here in Singapore. All in the name of racial harmony. Why limit to only Indians? I bet no one has seen a crowd of different races dancing together. Well, I haven't. And why not?

Most of our local films feature the local social life or the different social classes or sink into issues that every Singaporean can identity with. But what about the Singapore Dream?

Is there one in the first place? Most would have heard about the American Dream, more popular during the World War Eras, where America was the land of gold. Somewhat.

Imagine a movie with a dance scene. Teenagers to adults to senior citizens, Chinese to Indian to Malay to other races, dancing to the same beat, dancing the same steps, and incorporating different genres. One people, one nation, one national movie.

It's not that hard to imagine.

Good

Nothing like a good end to a good start with a good night's rest with a good dream :)