Monday, 31 August, 2009

Singaporeans in One Million Star 5 超越星光大道 5 PK challenge - Part 3

Intro to Singapore One Million Star PK challenge
Singaporeans in One Million Star 5 part 1
Singaporeans in One Million Star 5 part 2


It's another week of PK challenge over at One Million Star, and Singapore have sent some reinforcements to assist the 3 remaining SG PK Challengers, Yutaki Ong, Rachel Chua and Ng Chee Yang!

In part 3 of the PK challenge, Tay Kewei 郑可为, famous background vocalist for Asian pop artistes such as David Tao, Amei and JJ Lin together with Little Nonya theme song singer Olivia Ong were invited as PK challengers.

Check out how they and the 3 existing PK challengers fair in part 3 of the PK challenge!


超级星光大道第五季―對―踢館賽 part 3




Yutaki Ong 王顺达 vs Ami Yang 楊駿文



Opening plus performances and results


Tay Kewei 郑可为 vs Cecilia Liang 梁曉珺


Performances and results


Olivia Ong vs 李杰宇


Performances (results next vid)


Ng Chee Yang 黄智阳 vs Rose Liu 劉明湘


Olivia results + Chee Yang's performance (results next videos)


Rachel Chua 蔡艾珈 vs Eric Lin 林育澤


Chee Yang's results + Rachel's performance



Results


Only Yutaki, Rachel and Olivia made it through this week. How will they fare in part 4? Can't wait!

Jia You!


In case you want to see Kewei's youtube video of her cover of 方大同's 愛愛愛 (as mentioned in the show). Here is the video!


There is a link to her blog at the Youtube video page!


One of the songs from the album Olivia Ong released in Japan (as mentioned in by Tao Zhi in the show)


P.S: Tonight got Newcastle United match live on TV!! First time this season as Starhub don't usually show Championship matches. Will definitely watch it later!! Howay the lads!!!

(Images Taken From: My iPhone, Starhub One Million Star Page)

Friday, 28 August, 2009

My Singapore Idol Favourites at the Moment

The time has come for me to once again reveal my idol favourites. This time I will announce my favourites for this season’s Singapore Idol! I was really sick since Tuesday (high fever and cough) and had lots of medicine to take. Sorry if anyone missed me. =p
I have to take a total of 6 medications (5 different kinds of tablets & 1 cough syrup) after my meals, some 2 times, some 3 times a day and they made me very drowsy. I was so drowsy that I actually watched an entire episode of Growing Up without changing the channel on Tuesday. Lucky I slept a lot in the afternoon on Wednesday and managed to gather enough strength to watch the fourth episode of Singapore Idol, which revealed the top 24. Episode 4 was the most drama mama episode so far and I love it. Just like American Idol, I love to see the emotions showed by the contestants when they were told they are in the top 24. I love the idol first: duet self composition round. Some of the songs by the contestants sounded really good (I think some of them already have some original songs written before this round).

Now that we know who the top 24 are, I can reveal who my favourites are based on what the producers want us to see on TV, reading some information on the net and watching Youtube videos. I am usually very good at choosing favourites who will go far as I think I represent the average voting viewer lol. Some of my favourites in American and Singapore (okay I just realized, why not Singaporean ah) Idol early in the competition include, Bo Bice, Blake Lewis, David Cook, Adam Lambert, Sylvester Sim, Hardy Mirza, Daphne Khoo and Jasmine Tye. Although there are some (I shan’t mention) which I support early who went out in the first voting rounds, I’m usually very good with this ….. really he he.

So, without further ado, it is now time for me to reveal the 3 Singapore Idol contestants who are my favourites at the moment ... (they usually end up being my favourites for the rest of the season)

(In alphabetical order)

1) Charlene Torres-Tan



Charlene Torres-Tan in Fernando Torres’s jersey - From her Facebook Fan Page


She is sweet looking and has the girl next door feel. She seems friendly on her Facebook fan page too. I’m sure lots of other guys will agree with me and vote for her if she performs well. If you are wondering why she has “Torres” as her middle name … It’s not because she is madly in love with Fernando Torres and added his last name to her name. The reason why she has a Spanish sounding middle name is because she is mixed. According the her Facebook fan page, her mother is Filipino and it is a tradition for them to adopt their mother’s surname before their Chinese surname. It seems like she is a Liverpool and Torres supporter though from the picture above. I guess lots of Liverpool supporters will support her heh.

Sorry I can’t find any videos of her on Youtube. The only videos I can find are of Fernando Torres heh.




Maybe her supporters can modify and sing the Fernando Torres song when cheering for her.

Charlene Torres-Tan’s Facebook Fan Page


2) Kelly-Mae Sta Maria



Kelly-Mae, already looking like a star - From her Facebook Fan Page


She got into the top 100 in Australian Idol which I’m sure is really difficult as they have a population of 20 plus million there. According to her Facebook fan page, she has won some awards and in the process of recording her own album. She is married to an Australian husband who would learn how to make Char Kway Teow for her and fly over to Singapore to support her… so sweeeet. I don’t think being married will affect the number of votes for her as seen in last season’s American Idol (Married Kris Allen won), as long as she performs well. Love her voice and style.

Check out this video of her on Youtube ...



Kelly-Mae Sta Maria’s Facebook fan page


3) Syltra Lee



Syltra with her band Aurigami (cool name) - From Aurigami's Facebook Fan Page


Rocker chick Syltra is in a band called Aurigami and appeared on Live and Loaded in episode 5. She has lots of videos on youtube, some covers some originals. Visit her youtube page to listen to her version of songs like Poker Face, If I Ain’t Got You and Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow. Her original songs are really nice too. I think her band performs regularly at Acid Bar, not sure if they do now with her idol commitments. I’m sure she will be one of the more creative contestants and will make the songs she sings her own.

Umbrella & Single Ladies Medley


Can’t find her facebook fan page there is a Aurigami fan page though. (*Update: I found her fan page! Syltra Lee fan page)

Sorry ... unlike last season’s American Idol, there are no guys in my 3 Singapore Idol favourites heh.

Contestant who did not make it whom I will miss: Miss “I not Ah Lian” Rachel Gan. Too bad she screwed up the last audition.

Just like last season’s American Idol, I have compiled the top 24's fan, group or personal page (if there is no fan page) on Facebook specially for you. =)

Girls
Charlene Torres-Tan – I support
Fathin Amira – I support
Frances Maria – I support
Gabrielle Ferdinands – I support
Jannah Shaharuddin – I support
Mae Sta Maria – I support
Malaque Mahdaly – I support
Nurul Huda – I support
Samantha Lee – I support
Syltra Lee – I support
Sylvia Ratonel – I support
Tabitha Nauser – I support

Guys
Benjamin Chow – I support
Charles Wong – I support
Douglas Wong – I support
Duane Ho – I support
Farhan Shah – I support
Jonathan Cheok – I support
Justin Jap – I support
MJ Kuok – I support
Ryan Lee – I support
Theodore Teow – I support

Mine
Boliaosia – I support (=P)

Blogs to read if you are mad about Singapore Idol:
The official Singapore Idol 2009 Blog
The unofficial Singapore Idol blog aka Summerr in the Shower

Both have lots of juicy news and information on the show and the contestants. They upload the latest episodes too!

Other sites you want to go to ..
Singapore Idol Official site
Singapore Idol Official Facebook Group
Singapore Idol Official Twitter Page
Hardwarezone EDMW Singapore Idol 3 Discussion Thread

To carry on with my Idol tradition, I will try my best to give my “expert” predictions after every round. If you have read my American Idol predictions, you will find out that they are pretty accurate. Okay lah I think around 60% correct …. quite good right? For the piano shows, the results will be out 2 hours after the show, that will make my predictions a little more challenging, but I will try my best. Don’t worry, I won’t cheat and will make an effort to blog my prediction within an hour after the performance.

The first half of the top 24 performs next Wednesday!! Syltra Lee is in it!! Go Syltra!! You will have at least one call from me heh. It will be the first time we actually hear some of them sing … maybe some will impress me so much that I will change my favourites he he.

Who are your favourites??


(Images Taken From: My iPhone, Official Singapore Idol site, Charlene’s Facebook Fan Page, Kelly-Mae’s Facebook Fan Page, Aurigami’s Facebook Fan Page)

Sunday, 23 August, 2009

Singaporeans in One Million Star 5 超越星光大道 5 PK challenge - Part 2

In part 1 of the PK challenge, all 3 of our SG PK Challengers managed to either win or draw and thus had the opportunity to sing again in the PK challenge part 2. In part 2, another Singaporean, Yutaki Ong, has joined in the fun.

Check out their performances in part 2 of the PK challenge!


超级星光大道第五季―對―踢館賽 part 2


Yutaki Ong 王顺达 vs Cecilia Liang 梁曉珺

<
opening plus performances from Yutaki and Cecilia



Results


Tan Diya 陈迪雅 vs 李杰宇


Performances and results


Ng Chee Yang 黄智阳 vs Jui Wang 王璿


Performances and results plus a little bit of Rachel in the end


Rachel Chua 蔡艾珈 vs Ami Yang 楊駿文


Performances and results

3 out of 4 are safe and get to come back in the next episode. Congratz to Rachel Chua for her full marks performance! Can’t wait for next episode.

Jia You!

(Images Taken From: My iPhone, Starhub One Million Star Page)

Thursday, 20 August, 2009

Happy Birthday Omy!!

Omy will be 2 years old in a month's time and I have made this birthday cake specially for Omy ...

----------------------------------------------------------------
Happy birthday 2 you

Happy birthday 2 you


Happy birthday tooooo Omy


Happy birthday 2 youuuuuu

----------------------------------------------------------------

Since their launch, there has been much changes such as the launch of their latest Chinese e-learning section - CLing; omy.sg's involvement with the mega-entertainment party, the Singapore Entertainment Awards 2009 (新加坡e乐大赏); and of course, the launch of the annual Singapore Blog Awards (新加坡部落格大奖)which I miraculously got into the finals this year he he.

An advance Happy Birthday to you Omy!!


All the best and may you have millions of readers in the future!!

(Images Taken From: Omy.sg, brushes used - Confetti and Streamer brushes)

Tuesday, 18 August, 2009

End of School Life Special: Part B (Random Project Visual Part 1)

Part A - Introduction + The Project House
Part B - My Random Group Project Visuals (part 1, part 2, part 3 tba)
Part C - My Random Presentation Slides (tba)
Part D - My Bo Liao Guide to Forming a Good Project Group in School (tba)


Hello again. This is the second post of my “End of School Life Special”. In my first post, I mentioned that it a four part series which may expand to six parts if I dig out to much stuff for part B and C. Now that I have gathered most of my random group project visuals, I have decided to expand the four parts into seven parts! Part B (My Random Group Project Visuals) will be expanded into 3 sub parts and Part C (My Random Presentation Slides) will be expanded into 2 sub parts. To make things even more complicated, I have decided to post part 1 and part 2 of Part B (My Random Group Project Visuals) first, followed by Part C (My Random Presentation Slides). After posting the 2 parts of Part C, I will then post the final part of Part B (My Random Group Project Visuals) and I will end the seris by posting Part D (My Bo Liao Guide to Forming a Good Project Group in School).

Hope you understand what I have just typed lol.

Let’s begin Part 1 of Part B now! =)


Welcome to part B of the End of School Life Special. In this part, I will showcase some amateurish visuals of my previous group projects. Although I have been in different groups, I usually try to be the one making the visuals as I enjoy doing it. In case you are wondering why they don’t look professional, it is because they are not meant to be lol. I am just a marketing student with limited designing skills and not a design or multimedia student, so I think it’s unfair to compare them to those pro looking design student's works ha ha. They are really very talented. In work life, the marketers usually get professional designers to design anyways heh. (Sorry. Trying very hard to give excuses for my not so pro looking designs =D)

The visuals are not as important as the reports and in most cases are not required. We like to add them in for some extra points to help us score better he he. You know, it gives the person marking the report the impression that we have put in a lot of effort into the project heh. For those who still have school project to do - For your info: I think it usually works lol

At the end of the day, for us marketing students, the 20+++ pages reports (60++ with appendices) are the most important aspect of our projects. Nevertheless, we had lots of fun coming up with ideas for the visuals and designing them. We are also very kiasu and like to give tutors something extra. Sometimes, some of my group members end up being models for the posters or actors in videos lol. You won’t see examples in this post, but I promise I will post them in the next post he he.

Okay, these are
visuals from 4 of my projects for part 1 of the Random Group Project Visuals. Some I have done many years ago so forgive me if I forget some information regarding it. I will just crap my way through like I usually do and you won’t notice anyway, unless you are one of my previous group mates he he.

1. Corny Nutters


I used photoshop for the first time in my life for this project and I had a lot of fun exploring how to use the program heh. Like many casual users, I was not taught how to use photoshop so a lot of patience is needed when trying to do certain things. Google is my best friend and tutor for Photoshopping stuff lol.

This project is for our Retail Management module and our task is to come out with a concept for a push cart and actually implementing it! We had to think of what to sell, come up with our own brand name, logo etc.
One of my favourite projects of all time and I had lots of fun doing it.

After a long and hard discussion, we decided to sell Kachang Puteh (assorted nuts) and cup corns. We decided on the name “
Corny Nutters” as it is easy to remember and so corny. I think it’s a great name! As it was my first time using photoshop and my drawing skills ain’t that fantastic, the logo I made was really simple. I think it’s really cute though he he.
We got our nuts on consignment from the really helpful people over at Tong Garden who even offered us a “keep the nuts warm” thingy as seen on the “
Nuts Section” picture above for free! In return, we advertised their brand for free by pasting their logos on our store and our “Nuts Packaging” (see pics above).

As our logo looks kiddy, we are stuck to being cute, so we decided to have a childhood theme for Corny Nutters. We had balloons, a bubble blowing rabbit, some primary school snacks and toys for prizes. We also went around throwing those mini bombs and the press and wait for it to explode thingy (forgot what they are called … those you played when you were young). Our uniforms were school uniforms as seen in the “
Push Cart” pic above. Easy to get and it fits our theme he he. As you can see from the pics, the store isn’t the best looking one due to our lack of arts and craft skills. We did win others in terms of the size of our stall as we had a Nuts Section and Corn Section in addition to our push cart. Our cute logo, fun atmosphere and friendly staff (us) also won the hearts of the lecturers and tutors. One of our lecturers even helped us sell the nuts lol. We also had some bulk purchases from the tutors! Our cup corns section was really popular and we sold all our cup corns! We had to make a last minute sold out sign for our cup corns lol (see pic above).

The money we earned we got to keep and some groups were also selected to set up our stalls on our poly’s Open House
for extra cash! We got selected and got to sell Corny Nutters to cute young girls who just graduated from secondary school! After some creative accounting, according to our report, we managed to earn quite a lot of money! Go Corny Nutters!!

2. BreadTalk


I realized that I wrote too much on the Corny Nutters part so I will try to be less long winded from this section onwards heh.

For this project (Brand Management Module), we had to find out if BreadTalk is a “Genuine Brand” in consumer’s mind and come out with ways to improve its image.

For the investigation part, we had to come up with a questionnaire and get real customers to answer the questions. Different groups were sent to different outlets to conduct the surveys and we were rewarded with some cute BreadTalk collectibles. Too bad I don’t have any pics of them. We also did some store observation on our own to further enhance the credibility of our findings.

I won’t talk about the findings as I think its confidential he he but the visuals above are some of the things we recommended. The new uniforms recommendations are drawn by our very own Alan and the magazine insert which will pop up when you open the magazine is done by Teck (he actually made a mock up). All the visuals (same for other modules) were printed for the tutors to get a better feel of how they will look like during presentation. We love printing posters!

I actually designed a cute BreadTalk mascot which is a bun with a chef’s hat, but I can’t find the image. I think a few visuals are missing too. Damn.

3. Esprit


This project is for our Strategic Marketing module and we are supposed to communicate the brand personality and rejuvenate the Esprit brand. As we had lots of projects to complete at the same time that semester, we didn’t have much time to create lots of visuals.

We came up with different versions of the esprit card, made a mock up magazine insert which is actually based from an actual magazine insert :P and focused on the service staff of Esprit. Alan, our resident fashion designer once again drew the uniforms. The female model looks familiar right? It is the same model from the BreadTalk project he he. Sometimes, when you do not have enough time, you have to compromise and reuse heh. Our Brand Management and Strategic Marketing tutors are different, so they won’t know I think.

Esprit models used are from Esprit’s annual report. Annual reports and official websites are great sources for getting companies’ images to use for school projects J. When it is for educational purposes, everything is okay as long as we cite the sources right? We do use our group mates as models for some projects but in this case, we felt that we needed better looking models ha ha (joking). It would be weird if we posed for the front cover (see pic above) instead of using the Esprit models right? =P

I remember for the presentation of this project, we screwed up the files in our thumb drive and had a little delay which angered the tutor a little. Lucky for us, our presentation was good and the presentation slides had lots of nice looking customized diagrams. The tutor ended up smiling and praised us instead. Phew.

4. Samsung


Wow this post is getting really long. I hope you are still reading it he he. If you are …. Hi! This is the last one for this part, hang in there. Luckily I had the foresight and split Part B into 3 parts before this post, or else the post will be freaking long man.

(Sorry, I just made this post longer with some crap. Okay, back to business.)

The last project featured today is my global marketing project for Samsung. The purpose of the project is to look into Samsung’s online strategy as a whole to cater to the youth’s in South East Asia. I think we needed to bond with high-life seekers.

This project actually consists of 2 projects that are interrelated to form the whole campaign. I forgot which is for which but the visuals I gathered are used in either one or maybe both.

As the focus is on the online strategy, most of our recommendations are online based. We have a windows messenger ad, website advertising and a microsite for our campaign. We actually created a fake website for this project and used my previous blog’s address for it lol. A customized skin was made as seen in the “Campaign Microsite” pic above. The links actually work and had relevant information in each section!

To bond with the high life seekers, our theme was “Fame & Glamour” and one of the suggestions we made was to sponsor the Singapore Fashion Week. We also had a contest where participants had the chance to star in the next Samsung commercial and a “Fame & Glamour” cruise touring around South East Asia featuring Samsung products. Celebrities, reporters and some of the contestants will be invited to the cruise. When we presented, we actually fitted a golden cloth onto the tutor’s chair, placed some champagne on the table and gave an invitation to our imaginary cruise to the tutor lol. That really made him a very happy tutor he he.
---------------------------------------------

Okay, that’s all for today folks! I just realised that I have typed almost 2000 words. Woo hoo, I have just completed an individual essay! No grammar check and typos are done though as this is not graded, so if there are any mistakes please forgive me he he.

In my next End of School Life special, I will feature 4 more projects =) Most of the visuals will have this guy in it.


He is Alan, the long haired “fashion designer” and poster boy for most of the projects when I am in the Tecky Team, one of the many groups I am involved in my life as a marketing student in poly and uni.

Tecky Team consists of: Alan, Teck, Jansie, Elizabeth, Monica and me. I did most of my poly projects and spent the most time doing projects with the Tecky Team.

I love projects and designing amateurish visuals for it!


Next time on my End of School Life Special – My Random Group Project Visuals Part 2: The Alan Chronicles. Stay tuned!!

(Images Taken From: My previous projects)

Friday, 14 August, 2009

Singaporeans in One Million Star 5 超越星光大道 5 PK challenge - Part 1

One month plus ago, I blogged about the Chosen 3 to represent Singapore at the One Million Star 超越星光大道 5 PK challenge. They have recently flown to Taiwan and began their PK challenge journey. Besides the 3 of them, another Singaporean guy (Yutaki Ong 王顺达) has joined them in their battle against the top ten contestants in this season's One Million star 超越星光大道.

Check out their performances in week 1 of the PK challenge!

超级星光大道第五季―對―踢館賽 part 1


Rachel Chua 蔡艾珈 vs 胡采書


skip to 2:10 for her appearance and performance



Results


Tan Diya 陈迪雅 vs 孫自佑


skip to 1:50 for her appearance and performance



Results


Ng Chee Yang 黄智阳 vs 楊駿文


skip to 7:35 for his appearance and performance



Results


1 Win 2 draw but I think it should be at least 2 wins based on my judging. I think Rachel Chua is the most impressive. Anyways, all 3 of them will be back for the next episode and Yutaki will be joining in the fun.

Will definitely watch their performances again when they show it on TV at the end of this month.

Jia You!

(Images Taken From: My iPhone, Starhub One Million Star Page)

Thursday, 13 August, 2009

For Wayne we Drink!

It’s been a long time since I got drunk as I don’t club much nowadays …. but last week, to celebrate Wayne’s birthday, I got drunk 2 times in the same week!

On Tuesday, after watching the G.I Joe movie preview (which is as nice as the movie UP) with my sis, we met up with Wayne to celebrate his birthday. That was when the drinking started …

Day 1 (Tuesday) – KPO and Movida


Our first stop was KPO at Kiliney road, an ice cream drinking place which seems really classy. Dressed in t-shirt and jeans, I felt a little out of place, but we still drank anyway heh. We only had beer there and drank till 1plus am when it closed. We still felt that the night was still young though and went to St James Power Station to extend our drinking session. We ended up at Movida and ordered more drinks. We had beer and tequila pops at Movida and took some pictures with me doing stupid poses.

We switched over to Dragonfly, ordered some more drinks and wanted to dance but my sister was starting to feel the effects of the alcohol and was visiting the toilet more often than a person with diarrhoea. Although I was a little tipsy, I thought I could still drink more and continued drinking in between the times I accompanied my sister to the toilet. I only felt the full effects of the mixture of beer, tequila and vodka (I think) after we stepped out of Dragonfly to head home. I couldn’t really walk straight but somehow managed to get into the cab with my sister (who just told me she didn’t remember that we went to Dragonfly heh).

When the cab started moving, I felt like puking. And puke I did! Lucky for the taxi man, he had a plastic bag on standby for drunkards like me, and immediately passes one to my sis and me when I told him to stop for me to puke. He didn’t stop, so I “merlioned” into the plastic bag while the car was moving and it felt like shit. It was loud and disgusting and I pity the cab driver. Sorry!

I think I have never puked after drinking for more than 2 years man. I love the feeling of getting drunk but really hate the after effects heh. We barely made it home and I fell asleep on the sofa immediately without bathing. Disgusting feeling sia, especially after you have just puked.
And that was the end of the first day of drinking …


Day 2 (Saturday) - Broiler

After staying free from alcohol for a few days, the three of us continued our drinking session on Saturday, this time with more friends. Darren, Iska, Edison, Claire and Lynn Zhi were we with us on Saturday when we went to Broiler for round 2.


I started off with a beer (again) and continued with the bottle of Chivas Wayne bought and some tequila shots =) We played five ten, drank quite a lot but lucky I was not as drunk as Tuesday. Wayne and I did something stupid though. We played pool with people better than us and ended up losing the bottle of beer bet. Wayne paid for the drinks though so I didn’t feel the pain heh. Overall I think I drank more on Saturday but lucky I didn’t puke. I think it must be because I had less beer and more of other stuff. The night ended with the not so drunk people taking videos of the super drunk people and a free ride home by Iska. Videos will be kept for blackmail in the future =P

Things I liked about these 2 days
  • Haven’t felt so high drinking in a long long time
  • I didn’t spend much on drinks as they were paid by others =P I think overall for the 2 days, I spend less than $30. A big thank you to Omy for the free G.I Joe tics and friends who paid for drinks and transport.
  • Fun to see classmates drunk. Maybe they feel the same way when they see me too lol.
  • G.I Joe was really nice. I think it will be the next big movie franchise.
Things I didn’t like
  • The puking feeling
  • The fat and unglam pics of me (which I never post of course). The fatter I get the harder it is to have decent pics. Need to exercise!!
Other Things I did recently
  • I jogged today =) So proud of myself
  • I took the pledge at 8.22pm last Sunday on my way home. Stood still on the road with Shawn and people thought we were nuts
  • Watched UP with Jasmine and really liked it. The 3D effects are really nice and the story is good too.
  • Watched a J Drama which I bought some time ago called Celeb to Binbo Taro (Celeb & Poor). Have not finished watching, but so far so good!
  • Watched 2 episodes the new season of Singapore Idol. I don’t really like the auditions parts of the Idol series and I’m looking forward to the Hollywood rounds (erm what you call it in Singapore Idol?) where most of the bad singers are gone. There are a few contestants which I think I will support based from my first impression. I will reveal their names just like I did for the recent American Idol if they get into the voting rounds heh.
  • Benjamin showed me this ad below
The description of the ad is weird. Dunno what cosmic Qi-Gong and free from “running fire enter evil” which is a Chinese phrase called “Zhou Huo Ru Mo” which means something like learning till you get possessed by evil spirits lol. Sounds like some Chinese Kung Fu movie.

That’s not the funny part of the ad though. The thing that made Benjamin and everyone he showed the ad to is the name of the consultant. Read it and you will know what I mean he he.

(Images Taken From: Wayne’s phone, Lynn Zhi’s digital camera)

Sunday, 9 August, 2009

Kimi's Cone of Shame!

I'm alive!!

Just survived 2 days of mad drinking in a week for Wayne's birthday celebration. More about that later... today's post is about the Cone of Shame.


If you have watched the movie "UP" (which is really nice by the way), I'm sure you can recall Dug putting on the "Cone of Shame". When I saw that scene, I immediately thought of my dear little Kimi. She used to wear this elizabethan collar thingy after she had her operation or when she had rashes and needed to apply some cream. She looks so cute in it and I can't resist posting a pic of her after watching the movie UP.
Lets see a video of the scene first ...



And now ...... Presenting Kimi with her very own Cone of Shame!!


So cuteeeeeeeeee but really makes her look sad. Poor thing.

Let me add a few more pictures of her just to fill this post up heh.


These pics were taken a few months ago but I didn't post them on my blog heh. Since like Kimi is too sleepy when I'm taking photos of her and she can't be bothered with what I'm doing.

Oh ya ...

Its National Day today!! Happy 44th Birthday Singapore!!!!

Remember to watch Singapore Idol right after the national day parade! I'm so looking forward to it.

(Images Taken From: My iPhone, Up offical website)

Thursday, 6 August, 2009

National Day Parade Songs Singapore!! (Parodies included)

I'm really looking forward to 9th August because Singapore Idol is finally coming back after a long absence!! Oh ya, its also Singapore's 44th birthday i.e its National Day again! To show my love, I have actually changed my blog header to the special national day edition around 2 weeks ago! If you haven't noticed or its your first time here, let me show you the difference!

Normal Blog Header


National Day Edition


See so patriotic sia. The stickman is carrying a flag and the bee (acting as a helicopter) has a flag attached to it. If you observe carefully you can see that even the house in the background has a Singapore flag now! The background also features the logo (Come Together) of this year's national day parade ....

We all know that almost every year, we have a new National Day song, and this year's new national day song is called by What Do You See by local band Electrico. National Day songs are usually very catchy and easy to sing along, but this year's one is a little different and I love it! Its a song that I would put in my iPhone together with my other non NDP songs ha.

I remember in the past when I was in primary school, we would all have song books with national day songs included to practice. Its been a long time since I have seen that little book and I have forgotten the lyrics to most of the songs. Lucky for me and students in this high tech world, we have something called youtube and now you can sing along to the music videos anytime you want.

If you have somehow forgotten how to sing all the NDP songs, here are all the songs I can find on youtube. Practice while viewing the videos (with lyrics included) and sing along during national day!! If you are from Singapore I'm sure some of these songs will bring back some happy childhood memories =)

*Some videos are updated versions of the song.

1985 - Stand Up for Singapore (Celest Chong, Stella Ng, Celeb Goh, Ric Low)



1986 - Count on Me Singapore (lots of people)



Funny Dick Lee Version



1987 & 1988 - We are Singapore (Jacintha Abisheganaden, Jeremy Monteiro, Yee Ee Ping)



Money No Enough 2 version



1990 - One People, One Nation, One Singapore (lots of people)



1998 - Home (Ki Chan)



Singapore Idol Season 3 version



1999 - Together 心连心 (Kit Chan)



2000 - Shine on Me (Jai)



Chinese version (Mavis Hee)



2001 - Where I Belong (Tanya Chua)



2002 - We Will Get There (Stefanie Sun)



2003 - One United People (Stefanie Sun)



2005 - Reach Out for the Skies (Rui En, Taufik Batisah)



2006 - My Island Home (Kaira Gong)



2007 (1) - There's No Place I'd Rather Be (Kit Chan)



2007 (2) - Will You (Janani Sridhar, Asha Edmund, Emma Yong, Lily Ann Rahmat, Jai Wahab, Shabir Mohammed, Sebastian Tan, Gani Karim)



2008 - Shine for Singapore (Hardy Mirza)



Watched all these videos while I was uploading and I'm feeling a little emo now lol. Really bring back all those memories.

And Finally ..... This year's National Day Song What Do You See by Electrico!!



There is also a parody by Mr Brown which is really funny!!



Shows to watch today (Thursday)
  • National Day telemovie "This is My Home" starring Siona Wu Murphy (Sam in Fighting Spiders) at 10PM!!

Shows to watch on Sunday after Wayne's B-day party part 2 on Saturday
  • National Day Parade 2009
  • Singapore Idol after the National Day Parade at 8.30pm!!


Which is your favorite National day song?


Happy 44th birthday Singapore!!

(Images Taken From: NDP Official Website)

Sunday, 2 August, 2009

End of School Life Special: Part A (The Project House)

Part A - Introduction + The Project House
Part B
- My Random Group Project Visuals (part 1, part 2, part 3 tba)
Part C
- My Random Presentation Slides (tba)
Part D
- My Bo Liao Guide to Forming a Good Project Group in School (tba)

Hello to everyone reading this. This post is the first post of my “End of School Life Special”. This is a four part series which may expand to six parts if I dig out too much stuff for part B and C. Read on to find out what this parts are about.

Let’s begin this four part (or six) series now! =)




Introduction


As you can see from the presentation slide above, there are four parts. Part A will consist of this introduction you are reading now and “The Project Room”, which is the place where most of my groups discuss and do our projects at. Part B will be about the amateurish visuals which I have done for my projects accompanied by some description. Part C will be like Part B but about my presentation slides. Last but not least, Part D will be my bo liao guide to forming a good school project group based on my past experience. As mentioned above, Part B and part C might expand into 2 posts each if there are too many stuff to post.

I love doing projects and will definitely miss the times I spent with all my different sets of group mates, rushing to meet the deadlines of the various projects we had. Let’s treat this special series as a closure to my school project life, and a chance to upload some of the stuff we did online for keepsake, in case my hard disk fails me and everything is gone. Before you get too excited, no reports will be uploaded ha ha. How to sia? So many pages for each report …


The Project House aka My House

I have had project discussions at places like the school’s project room, canteen, libraries, fast food restaurants, clubs and a few other places I can’t recall, but whenever possible, I would try to persuade my group mates to have a group meeting at my house ha ha. As my house was really near my poly, it was easy to get them to come over. In uni, it’s a little harder as it’s much further away. I do have some groups in uni that come over to my house for group meeting though heh (after using up all my power of persuasion).

I love having group meetings at my house because it has most of the facilities available which most places don’t provide. The school’s project room may have air conditioning, wifi, and is enclosed for maximum concentration, but we can’t eat inside. We can eat in canteens and fast food restaurants, but its noisy etc etc etc ….. Although not perfect, I feel that my house is the best place to have a school group project meeting ha ha, simply because it’s more convenient for me as I do not have to go out of the house. Ooops sorry sorry, ahem, I mean it’s the best because it has most of the facilities available and usually nobody is at home except Kimi and me.

So why do I like doing projects at my house besides the fact that it is more convenient for me? Let me go through the reasons right now …


1) The discussion/dining table



Every project discussion needs a big table and chairs for everyone so that everyone in the group can be involved in the discussion. My home’s dining table can fulfill this requirement. Think it might be too small for larger groups or for placing many laptops, books and notes?


Yes, this dining table can transform into a much longer table within a minute!
With this longer table and extra chairs hidden in the store room, all members of a large group can actively participate in group discussions. Notes, laptops and even food can be placed on the table. Yes, we can all eat and discuss on this table at the same time! Just order some food delivery like pizza or sushi from Sakae Sushi or buy some snacks from the ma ma shop downstairs, and we can enjoy ourselves in the midst of a stressful discussion. Many brilliant reports were prepared here =P


2) The relac one corner living room



This is the place for us to relax after a strenuous session of discussion, disagreement, staring silently at each other hoping for someone to answer everything, scratching heads, acting like we understand and scolding each other in our heads etc etc ….


In the Relac One Corner living room, we have a very comfortable L-shaped sofa which is magical. It puts people lying on it to sleep within 10 mins. I have lost count of the number of male and female group mates who fell asleep on that sofa. Maybe they are faking it so that they do not have to participate in the discussion heh (In case one of group mates who slept there before reads this – I’m just joking lah ha ha).

There is a TV and a PS3 for watching cable programmes and playing games. There is also the guitar hero set that Shawn left in my house in still there after around 6 months. I think he has forgotten about it and it’s mine now!

Although rarely used, there is a fax machine and a pc with wireless keyboard and mouse connected to the tv. I don’t remember using the fax machine before but we did use the pc to prepare for our presentations in my poly days.

I think we usually spend the most time here lol.



3) The concentration/my room



My extremely small room becomes my personal office when we are doing projects. Because my laptop sucks, and I can concentrate better when I’m alone, I usually hide in my room when we typing out our parts of the report or when I’m doing the visuals and compiling.


If my group mates want to monitor me while I’m at work, they can sit on the comfortable sofa bed while watching. Although the sofa bed does not have as much sleeping magic as the L-shaped sofa, some group mates have fell asleep there before.

There are 2 monitors in the room, one widescreen 24 inch one, which makes it very easy to multitask and a small one (my old monitor) which actually has been converted into a tv.

Wireless connection is available for all group mates with laptops which allows them to connect to the internet to do some research if the books we own and loaned do not have the information we need. However, it seems like more time is spent on Facebook and MSN

A 3 in 1 colour printer, scanner and photocopier is available to print out the notes and final reports. It has served me well for more than 5 years and it is still working at the moment. Because my house is also my father’s office, we do not need to worry about the lack of printer ink and paper. I wonder how many reports have been printed on this printer.

4) The place to cook and relief yourself (aka kitchen & toilet)


A kitchen for you to cook and a toilet to pee and shit is within crawling distance. You don’t need to go around looking for the toilet when you have your group meetings here. Super delicious legendary instant noodles have been prepared in the kitchen over the years. In the past, I used my poly group mates as guinea pigs for my latest instant noodle mix. I have a few maggie inventions which I may feature in future posts =)


The picture above explains everything …

5) The Group Mascot - Kimi the Dog


There used to be 2 mascots during my poly days but Jackie passed away last year =( … now we are left with the smaller, naughtier, noisier and smellier Kimi!


She takes her own sweet time to eat and sometimes demands that you feed her. She scares the shit out of my group mates when she barks. She dresses up to impress (okay I dress her up) and cover her rashes and she plays ball with anyone who kicks it. She always acts cute to make you forget about the bad things she has done.

She is the one and only Kimi, the friendly dog who is comfortable with every of my group mates. She loves lying beside people’s feet and getting massaged by their feet, which explains why she is so smelly. I could smell a combination of different Hong Kong feet odour after group meetings at my house ….. just joking, only mine lah.

6) Other stuff worth mentioning …


  • Air con is usually switched on as my house is always hot. Fan will be used to increase coolness if it’s still hot or when the air con is not working.
  • Cosy romantic lights are available which creates a relaxing atmosphere.
  • Newspaper and stationery are provided if needed.
  • For vain guys and girls, there is one mirror in the toilet outside, one in my room and another in my sis’s room to fix your hair and touch up your make up. Best mirror to use is the one at my sis’s room.
  • For smokers, just step out of the house and there is a nice corridor for you to smoke at. My group usually has more than 1 smoker so the corridor is very important. Smoke breaks are the best way to take a breather and refresh the mind.
  • Stay over is allowed when rushing projects.
I would encourage others who are studying now to have their group project meetings at someone’s house if possible. It is the place where you can do some serious work and have fun, the place where you can be comfortable without any restrictions, the place where you can bond with your group mates and the place where most of my awesome projects are made …

I love projects and my Project House!

Next time on my End of School Life Special – My Random Group Project Visuals. Stay tuned!!

(Images Taken From: My digital camera)
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