The last time I wrote about old songs I mentioned songs with meaningless lyrics. This time it's about old songs I hate.

No. 1 on my most-hated list... Tell Laura I Love Her by Ray Peterson. This is a song about a boy entering some stock-car race, hoping to win the cash to buy Laura a wedding ring. He, of course, had to crash in a fatal manner, yet he managed to tell Laura I LOOOVVEE HER umpteen times until the medic pulled off his oxygen. I just can't stand it. I get goosebumps everytime I hear that song. It's like he's gonna haunt her... My Love for you will never die.... even though I'm dead ooooo~~. yucks!

No. 2 ... My Ding-a-Ling by Chuck Berry... Sure was hard swimming cross that thing with both hands holding my ding-a-ling... God! I really don't want to hear about how he play with or hold his Ding-a-ling.

No. 3 ... Feelings by Albert Morris.. that Feelings~~ wo~wo~wo feelings~wo~o~o~ feelings make me wanna stuff a sock right into the mouth of whoever's singing it.

Still waiting for iPhone 2.1. But installed iTunes 8 last night since the update of iPhone 2.1 will be done through iTunes 8, or so I've read.

Anyway Apple promised a whole new experience of browsing music. Well.. i wouldn't call browsing via album artwork new and on top of that, Genius playlist is not available for Sg users. So not much difference between iTunes 7 and 8 where I'm concerned.
But there's this silly thing in iTunes 8 that irks me. If the songs are imported from the same CD, with the same artist and the same album title, then it's only logical they belong to the same album. So I'm rather annoyed to see 12 out of 13 songs represented by 1 album icon and and one lone song from the CD represented by another same album icon. Happened to a number of my albums. Was too tired last night to find out why. Will check again tonight.

Been using the iPhone for the last 2 weeks. Getting used to it. It's not too bad after a while. Found some useful and fun apps too. I like the bubble-sms although the lack of forwarding & multiple recipient still irritates me. Why Apple? Why?

I'm waiting for the dev team to come out with the update Pwnage for iPhone 2.1. I'm jailbreaking it just so I can use biteSMS.

I was finally able to download the iPhone applications! Earlier I kept getting an error message that said I could only download applications from S'pore's iTunes store. But I did register at the S'pore iTunes store and my address, phones everything are Singapore based. So I ought to be able to download. But I just couldn't!

I tried calling Singtel's iPhone hotline 1626.. must be really hot.. coz it took me almost 10 mins before I finally get to talk to an operator. But she wasn't able to help and kept putting me on hold while she consulted her colleagues. Finally I still couldn't solve it.

It was Anthony who suggested I download using the computer from iTunes first, then sync to the iPhone. I tried it last night and it worked! Finally!

So after sync-ing the iPhone, I'm now able to download directly using the iPhone. Weird. As long as it works.

So last night I was busy downloading and I found this very interesting application "Midomi". It's a music search utility with 4 ways of searching. Sing, Say, Grab or Type. With Sing, you just have to hum a few bars and it actually find the song together with links to iTunes & YouTube. I tested it. Sang a bit of I'm Yours, and it recognised the song! No more wondering what song was that on the radio. Use Grab, hold the iPhone to the radio and it identifies the song! Had so much fun with it.

Last Saturday, after the mad rush to send out the reports, my adrenaline tapered off, leaving me in a half-zombie state.

Hubs dropped me & Rachel off at United Sq. for breakfast. And for the first time in my life I felt like puking when I smelled the coffee. (ok.. coffee at McDonald's wasn't great but it wasn't that bad..) I had 5 mugs of coffee in the past 6 hours and I just couldn't take the smell of coffee any more.

After I walked Rachel to her class, I went straight to AoR. Wasn't in the mood to do much. I chatted with Leon and rest of the people at AoR. But half the time I wasn't sure what I was saying. I have slept like 6 hours in the past 72 hours and basically I in a sleep-deprived-comatosed-state.

I took 1/2 of my drum lesson but was too tired to continue. I got Rachel to take over the rest. Cancelled my guitar lesson with Akie too, cos my mind couldn't process anything else.

I finally got home at 3.30pm, took a flu pill and knocked myself out. The 2-hour uninterrupted sleep did wonders. By 6.30pm I was fresh again, ready to face what's left of Saturday. Sent a text msg to Sophia to confirm our meet-up. So at 9.30pm, me & Sophia were chilling out at Vino Vino. Dee was there too. I finally found out her full name. Iylia. Nice name. Asked her why is everyone calling her Dee since her name starts with a I. She has no idea too! hahahha. It was fun chatting with her. And Akie, he kept making fun of me about my afternoon's zombie-state.

Went to Timbre at Substation after that. Goodfellas was playing. They were belting out a Cantonese number when we arrived. It was a popular song by Beyond but it took us a while to figure what they were singing...hahaha. Teased Rafi about it when he came over to chat during the break. There are a few video clips of Goodfellas at Timbre. But all rather low quality videos. Told Rafi I couldn't see him in many of the clips. Ought to raise up the drum platform a bit.

It was quite enjoyable... the company, the live music, the people-watching and the booze. Although I had to keep a lid on the booze part since I was driving. We stayed till closing time. Sophia likes the place. Me too. This place's a hidden gem. So looks like we'll be going there pretty often before she leaves for Oz.

Sophia stays in Jurong, so I drove her back. Cab fare would have cost a bomb and she already paid for the drinks. It was way past 2.30am by the time I reached home. As long as it's not work, I dun mind the late early hours. hahha

Someone left the cake out in the rain 

I don't think that I can take it 

'Cause it took so long to bake it 

And I'll never have that recipe again 

Oh, nooooooooo!
Oh, nooooooooooooooo!
Oh, noooooooooooooooooooooo!

Puts me in a real nice happy mood..



Well, you done done me and you bet I felt it
I tried to be chill but you’re so hot that I melted
I fell right through the cracks, now I'm tryin to get back
before the cool done run out I'll be givin it my bestest
and nothin's gonna stop me but divine intervention
I reckon it's again my turn to win some or learn some

But I won't hesitate no more, no more, it cannot wait
I'm yours

Well open up your mind and see like me
open up your plans and damn you're free
look into your heart and you'll find love love love love
listen to the music of the moment people dance and sing
We're just one big family
And it's our godforsaken right to be loved loved loved loved loved

So, i won't hesitate no more,
no more, it cannot wait i'm sure
there's no need to complicate our time is short
this is our fate..I'm yours

I've been spendin' way too long checkin' my tongue in the mirror
and bendin' over backwards just to try to see it clearer
But my breath fogged up the glass
and so I drew a new face and I laughed
I guess what I'd be sayin' is there ain't no better reason
to rid yourself of vanities and just go with the seasons
it's what we aim to do
our name is our virtue

But I won't hesitate no more,
no more it cannot wait
I'm yours

Well open up your mind and see like me
open up your plans and damn you're free
look into your heart and you will find that the sky is yours

so please don't, please don't, please don't,
there's no need to complicate,
Cause our time is short
This, this, this is our fate,
I'm yours

I've told my friends about AoR, and two of them decided to visit last Saturday. Sophia is interested in guitar and thinking of signing Saffron up for drums. Tang is interested in drums but his son wasn't sure yet. His son played a few instruments, so far no formal training. He's more interested in music arrangement. Too bad AoR is currently not offering that.

T & his son stuck around to watch how the lesson was conducted. Which was basically, standing outside my window, watching me for the entire 1/2 hr lesson... made me so conscious of myself.

Rafi said they (Goodfellas/Soulfellas) would be performing at Esplanade over the weekend at 8.30pm. I guess must be at the new Esplanade Outdoor Theatre. No wonder Esplanade was rushing for us to complete the works there... probably have performances lined up for the NDP celebrations. But I had to miss it. There was a NDP preview that night. No way I was going anywhere near Marina area. And I couldn't go on Sunday too since the next day was a school day. Oh well. Another time perhaps.

Had lunch with the Tangs and then I went Scotts Square for site inspection. No place to park on site and had to park at Hyatt Hotel. So imagine me walking through the posh hotel lobby and down Scotts Road in my construction boots & helmet. New fashion statement at Orchard! heheh

I was back at AoR for guitar lesson at 6. I still can't figure how to grip the guitar and spent the next 30 mins contorting my fingers. Akie made it looked so effortless. But how? Can't stand it. I got to do it somehow.

After a quick dinner, I went over to the expressway site. Need to witness backfilling sequence since my Mr. CoW was on medical leave. Left site around 9.30pm and headed down to Cathay Ben & Jerry's to watch Luth & Akie. That area around Cathay was teeming with young people. In fact there was still a queue trying to get into Cathay's carpark. Parked at Plaza Sg. Just a short walk.

As usual, very young crowd at Ben & Jerry's. Ordered an double Espresso instead of ice-cream. Watching my weight. But next time I would get a Double Expresso Double. Their double was so tiny.

Luth & Akie..as usual, very entertaining. One of the songs they played was Jason Mraz's I'm Yours, my JM fav. So guess what song I'm humming now?

The work at rescue shaft is finally coming to an end soon... hopefully by end of this month. I'm not attending any more of the daily morning meetings unless specifically requested to. But I'll let the silly 'o man attend since he seemed to enjoy those meetings.

Last Saturday, we had our regular morning meeting. The rest was discussing the pipe repairs. Pipe repair was outside my scope of works. So I was doodling and only half-listening to the discussion. But then I noticed Mr. CoW sketching something on his notes. I was mentally prepared when he whispered to me he had a solution to the repair works. I cut him off and told him not to get involved. He said he wanted to help the contractor and his solution was a simple one and sure can work one.

I patiently explained to him (I must have been in a good mood that morning!) that since he's my site rep, whatever come from him, the rest would think I'm backing him up. But I'm trying to limit my scope of works since there is a high chance I won't even get paid for what I've already done so far. In short, I told him to mind his own business.

Apparently my message didn't pass through that thick skull of his. Coz 10 minutes later, he suddenly stood up, interrupted the discussion and announced to all he had an idea. There was silence when everyone turned to look at him. I groaned and looked up to the sky "why me?" (see? I also can be drama one, ok?) Of course his brilliant idea was shot down. What else do you expect for half-baked solutions? *sigh*

Anyway enough of him.

Rest of the day passed quite pleasantly. I was hanging around at AoR, waiting for Rachel to finish her lesson. My guitar instructor, Akie, asked me to try jamming with him & Luth. I wasn't sure. I'm well aware of my limited skills. But Akie-san was quite encouraging. So there I was, at the drums, Akie on bass guitar and Luth acoustic guitar. And I had my very first impromptu jamming session that Saturday. Didn't think I embarrassed myself too much. Tried a few songs. It was quite fun. And well, I won't mind doing it again!

Later part of the afternoon, I was back at the site to witness the rescue of the TBM. I wanted to make sure the shaft (my baby!) was ok during the process. Mr. CoW couldn't make it. Everything went surprisingly smoothly. So everybody present was in a good mood. I saw the damage pipe. The TBM actually cored through quite a substantial part of the concrete pipe. Since the temporary shaft was ok, I've fulfilled my duty. Now is for contractor to repair the damaged pipe. Hopefully they can get it done within the week.

I tried Muse's Unintended on drums today.  It's such a beautiful song, so sad.. so heart-wrenching.. 

Raf let me listened to it a couple of weeks back.  But I was distracted by Rachel and wasn't paying attention then.  A few days ago I was checking out Youtube and saw this music video.  And I fell in love with the song...

It evokes old memories of a boy I used to go out with...

We met during the orientation months in JC.  It was hate at first sight.  I thought he was too aloof and he thought I had to be the noisiest girl in town.   We were forced to work together on an orientation project and soon got to know each other better.  The group of us classmates went out very often... and  the 2 of us would end up just talking to each other, enjoying each other's company.  I knew he liked me.  But he couldn't get over his relationship with another girl.  

We moved on...

Went our seperate ways...

Thought I've accidentally erased this photomontage. Luckily I found a backup. Academy of Rock organized their first rock concert in DBS Auditorium last November. All performances by students and instructors of the school.

Since it was Bryan's debut performance, I asked my mom, sis, brother & sis-in-law to come gave him our support. My brother came thinking it would be some kiddy performance and was amazed by the standard of the concert. 

It was totally awesome! Bryan did a great job! I enjoyed it tremendously and I'm looking forward to the next one.

I attended my 1st guitar lesson last Saturday. But on the following day, I cut my left index finger while doing helping my son with his school project. It was quite a bad cut. Guess I'll have to wait until it heals a bit :( My son was quite excited that I'm picking up guitar too and was disappointed when I wasn't able to practice with him.

Well, now Bryan's very interested in music. I tried to start him off at Yamaha music when he was about 6. And he didn't like it at all. Can't blame him. I sat in most of his lessons then and I thought the teacher couldn't possibly make it any more boringer. But now he's taking electric guitar lessons, also at AOR. He's learning bagpipes in school (cos of Boys' Brigade) and yesterday he asked if he could sign up for bass guitar too. Way to go, kiddo!

I'm having a lot of fun with drums. My drum instructor, Raf, would usually ask what songs I'd like, out of which he'll choose songs within my skill level. So right now, I've tried Snow Patrol's Chasing Cars, Coldplay's Yellow, Linkin Park's What I've Done (a bit shaky still), ACDC's Highway to Hell and White Stripes' 7 Nation Army.

Currently I'm learning Maroon 5's Won't Go Home Without You and Muse's Starlight. Won't Go Home Without You is quite easy. But Starlight's beat is a bit faster than what I can manage and I keep tripping over the middle part. My ultimate goal is to play Blue Oyster Cult's Don't Fear the Reaper and Greenday's American Idiot!

But it's quite difficult to get drum scores. I've tried searching on the internet. There's plenty for guitars but not much for drums. There's this site Drumscore.com that has a decent range of scores. I managed to order some from Amazon. Others, Raf would provide me with the drum tabs.

So a typical 1/2 hr lesson would be Raf writing out the drum tabs on the whiteboard and explaining the beats to me. He has a laptop in the tiny studio. So he'll play the song on the computer, give a demo. And I'll try to join in. But mostly I'll practice at home cos there's only so much u can do in 1/2hr. There are also sessions where I learn grooves and fill-ins techniques. Overall it's a fun way to learn since I'm actually jumpin in, playing songs that I like.

Btw I just found out that Raf is the drummer for The Goodfellas, apparently quite a popular local band, performing regularly at Timbre. I've totally lost touch with the pub scene.. I've not been to any nightspots since Rachel came along. Used to pub-hop in my younger days. I think my blood-stream is totally cleansed of alcohol now! hahaha. those were the days.... oh well :) better start acting my age....... HA!

Guess what? I got a distintion for my Grade 1 drums exams. Scored a 85 out of 100. Not bad for a senior citizen! hahaha. Bryan took his Grade 1 guitar on the same day too. He got a 72 out of 100. Not bad either. I didn't realised Academy of Rock is one of the examination centres for Trinity Rockschool. Awesome!

As for the exam, I was supposed to play 3 pieces of music from the Rockschool syllabus book. There was a technical exercise test which includes paradiddles, triplets, 8 beats, 16 beats etc., a sight reading test, where we were given 90 secs to study a 4 bar beats and play back. There was a aural test for a 8-beat strokes and a 8-beat grooves where we were to listen, playback and identify the scores. And then there was the theory part. I was rather apprehensive about the exam cos I had no prior music training at all. It was no surprise that I lost marks at the theory part. But overall it wasn't too scary. The tester was a friendly guy, from Trinity London College. Anyway my instructor told me there's another exam coming up in November and that I should go for Grade 2. And I think I will.

Plenty of things happened since the last post.

Work? As usual. Very busy. BCA has tightened the requirements for Temporary Earth Retaining System (otherwise known as TERS). Even go as far as to introduce jail-terms for failure to comply. This is good news for me. My designs will have to be robust. Builder has no choice but to follow and I can sleep better at night knowing that the Builder will not cut corners and whatever. On top of that any excavation deeper than 6m will require a Geotechnical PE to endorse the report. And so far there're only about 50 such PEs (including moi~) in the whole country, half of whom are in the public sector and don't do commercial designs. This means mo jobs coming my way. yeah!

Family? All are well. My baby niece is soooo cute. My son is having his Primary School Leaving Examination, otherwise known as PSLE. (God! I hate acronyms!) He just had his English papers. Told me it was esaily than his school's mid-year papers. Well. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Hopefully he does ok. He hasn't really been spending much time on studies. Oh well.

Personal? I'm having lots of fun learning drums. I've learnt Yellow, Chasing Cars and Linkin Park's "What I've Done". Suppose to jam with my son and his instructor this weekend. Looking forward to it. So glad that Sep/Oct is here. All my favorite TV shows are back! Heroes, CSI (all 3 of them), Supernatural. Yeah!!!

This is one thing I've always wanted to learn. Not guitar, not keyboards but percussions. But I'm always so busy. Plus drums are loud, very loud. I would love to have a setup at home but no one is going to allow this. Endless, repetitive practice will annoy even the most understanding family and neighbours.

Catch 22. You need to practice to get good, but you can’t practice because you sound bad and everyone tells you to stop. And even if you sound good, you’re going to be asked to stop because it's getting late, or someone wants to watch TV or just have some peace and quiet. So I never persue this though the desire has always been there.

Early this year, my kids signed up for guitar lessons. And after the 1st session, Rachel decided she didn't like guitar. She switched to drums and she's loving it! Last month she requested for a drum-kit. We discussed a little and agreed that she's probably quite serious about drumming since she managed to stick to it for the last 5 months. So we went to Swee Lee Company and we bought an electronic drum kit. It's the only type we can get without having angry neighbours coming at us.

And then I decided, what the heck, I might as well learn since we've already got the drums. I signed up for lessons that weekend.

I think I'm probably one of the most elderly students at the school. Most of the students are kids. Even the instructors are young. But it's fun! And you should see the expressions of the other parents who are there waiting for their kids when I come out of the studio with the instructor. Hey! I'm a cool mom.

I never really pay attention to censorship. Especially nowadays when there are ways & means to get the uncensored versions if you really want to. I understand that certain subjects or lyrics may be offensive or taboo to certain groups of people hence why the films or music have to be censored or even banned. But personally I think no one's forcing anyone to listen to their songs or watch their movies. If they offend you then just don't listen. Go ahead, do a self-censorship.

On the local scene, our censorship board is very efficient. Austin Powers 2 had it's title changed from "The Spy Who Shagged Me" to "The Spy Who Shioked Me". I had such a good laugh because "Shiok" means good or nice in Singlish (Singapore's own style of English mixed with Malay and Chinese dialects.) Singapore's board of film censors said the use of the word "shagged" was "crude and offensive".

I thought our censorship board only issues total ban. But recently I found out that a single offensive word could be blanked or masked off leaving the rest of the song intact.

For example, the song Glamorous by Fergie. When I first heard it over the radio I couldn't figure what was the sentence.. "If you ain't got no money get your broke o home." This sentence was repeated quite a number of times. I was wondering what on earh is a broke-O until I saw the MTV online. The line was supposed to be "If you ain't got no money get your broke ass home. " Heh heh.

My kids like James Blunt's "You're Beautiful". Not too long ago we bought the DVD for them They came running to me and told me James Blunt said the naughty word. I couldn't recall there being any profanity in the song. They were so excited and couldn't wait to re-play that part for me. "She could see in my eyes that I was fucking high." Oops. The version I heard on the radio went "flying high". Ok. So there's a clean verion. Now I know.

I was browsing through the CDs in a music store when my attention was caught by this CD cover.. sunny yellow with the silhouette of a tree and a guy with his guitar. Jack Johnson? Never heard of him. But I like the album title.. In Between Dreams. sounds lovely and so I bought it.

I bought a CD because I like its album cover? what the...

Thank goodness it wasn't a waste of money!

I've uploaded 3 of songs I like. Enjoy!

Again, I had to dig through my brother's vast collection of rock songs to locate these 3 fantastic old numbers.

After listening to darth, arethusa, fizzy fish's radioshows, I became rather curious about this internet radio broadcast thing. Did some search last night and came upon this neat software called Nicecast.

It sounded easy enough so I downloaded the demo. Went through the basic steps and hey! within minutes I was broadcasting! Songs were playing from another home PC sharing the same LAN! Tried the VoiceOver effect and I could hear me voice too. It was totally cool!

I was more than happy to pay for it and received my registration code this morning.

This time I went through the manual in closer detail.

Step 1 : Test with QT player on powerbook - Working. Next!

Step 2 : Test with a separate PC running on the same LAN - Working. Next!

Step 3 : Test via internet - Nothing (I knew it couldn't be that simple).

Ran the Server Checker and received an error message. The manual said I had to do a port mapping/fowarding from my router (oh no! wtf was that?). I searched the website's forum pages and apparently I was supposed to configure my router so that it would allow traffic for port 8000. I found the Port Forwarding thingy in my router's settings but I didn't know how to configure it. It took me a couple of hours of trial & error and testing and finally I got a green light from the Server Checker. I immediately called a friend and had him test my internet IP.

YYEEESSSS!!

US$40 and a quick 3.3MB download to be on air. It can't get any easier than that! (well.. except for that port fowarding thing.. but it's due to my lack of router knowledge.)

as I need to clear as much work as possible before I go on a 2-week break. Will be flying to US with my family on 29 May. Will be going to Orlando (Disneyland etc), then to Toronto (visiting my uncle) and to NY for a few days and before coming back to Singapore.

I haven't gone for vacation in 4 years. Hubby called me a workaholic. He's got to be kidding! Given a choice, I rather stayed in bed with a book and my ipod. It's just that I've been handling most of my office's projects and I tend to worry about things that might go wrong when I'm not around. You know how things are... a small problem left unresolved will somehow escalate. Anyway looks like I have to lug my laptop along, just in case. I'm not a workaholic. Call me responsible instead!

I've arranged for Gu to look after our car and have also decided on the pet boarding house for my two cats. So what's left is the packing. The kids are so excited about the trip. I did warn them about the long flight. It's a total of 21 hours with two transits, one at Narita Airport and the other in Minnieapolis. Will bring along some VCDs and games so that they won't get too bored on the planes. So I guess a laptop will be good. Plus I could listen in to darth radio too!

I was at home last Sunday listening to darth radio. I left a message on his blog that I was tuned in and he played Summer of '69 for me. It was quite fun! It's cool how this blog stuff brings people together. I've never met darth and may never will because of the vast (physical) distance between us. But that doesn't stop us from being friends. (right? darth?)

Ok. I better get back to work. Lunch break's over!

I got tagged by darth who was tagged by nat who was tagged by.....

1. Total volume of music files on my computer?
13.1GB (yikes!)

2. The last CD I bought was..
Comme Ci Comme Ca - Janet Seidel

3. Song playing right now..
Cliffs of Dover - Eric Johnson

4. Five songs I listen to a lot or that mean a lot to me..
(this is a tough one.. so many to choose from... hmm..)
These Are The Days - Jamie Cullum
Summer of '69 - Bryan Adams
Bohemian Rhapsody - Queen
Let's Groove - Earth, Wind & Fire
It's Probably Me - Sting

5. Which 5 people are you passing this baton to, and why?
No one in particular to send to. So why don't you just volunteer?