42 posts from 2006

My 2006 Discography

Dec 31, 2006
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Originally posted at RamblingLibrarian:

Ivan Chew’s 2006 Discography (links to MP3 files)

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 License.

White Nights (in collaboration with Vanessa Tan) - [Dec ‘06; Song Details]
Lady Of Shalott (Down to Camelot) - [Nov ‘06; Song Details]
Carry Me Over - [Oct ‘06; Song Details]
Ray of Light - [Oct ‘06; Song Details]
Dreaming of Better Days - [Sept ‘06; Song Details]
August Nights - [Sept ‘06; Song Details]
Moonsong - [Sept ‘06; Song Details]
Take Me Away - [Jul ‘06; Song Details]
March Upon The Black - [Jul ‘06; Song Details]
I Am Singaporean (Soundtrack) - [Jul ‘06; Song Details]
Run (Our Feet Will follow) - [Jul ‘06; Song Details]
Electric Rain Dance - [Jun ‘06; Song Details]
TechnoJungle - [Jun ‘06; Song Details]
So I Am A Werewolf - [Jun ‘06; Song Details]
Saturday In May - [May ‘06; Song Details]
Brand New Day - [Apr ‘06; Song Details]
January Skies (Cosmic Mix) - [Jan ‘06; Song Details]
January Skies - [Jan ‘06; Song Details]

Technorati Tags: music, discography

What really goes on in IRC/ Internet Chatrooms

Dec 31, 2006
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Really funny, and almost scary at the last part (I thought the guy was going to go berserk). Brilliant!

the_parlor_dsl

I discovered IRC chatrooms relatively late I think, in late 90s (although I've since learned there are lots more people in my age group who haven't tried stuff like MSN even now). I remember it was quite exhilarating to chat with so many complete strangers -- that strangers actually acknowledge your presence and are interested in what you say. But you had to find the right chatrooms. Even so, After a while I got bored. Somehow, conversations became rather dry and nothing substantial was being discussed. I was looking for serious discussions but most people seemed to want to start private chats and talk about rather inane stuff.

I tried going over to the more popular chatrooms but found that if your IRC nick was a male sounding one, you won't get a response from people. But woah, if you changed your nick to a female sounding one, or give the impression that it was a girl's, then you'd get a flood of messages that will usually ask for ASL (age, sex, location) within 3 lines of chat.

One time I got really really bored and pretended to me a girl. I wanted to know what the guys talked about. Sadly, almost 10 times out of 10, the chat soon turned into sex related questions (exactly like the part in the guy, where the older guy asked the younger girl if she had a boyfriend etc). After that, I never went back to IRC chatrooms.

I. Need. To. Exercise.

Dec 24, 2006
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Today's Christmas Eve. Being in the holiday mood, my wife and I went to stuff ourselves silly today. Dim Sum for lunch. More junk food when we reached home -- cookies, Bak-Kua, sweets, chocolates, chips. And it was only yesterday that I had a bowl of Laksa (I finished the entire bowl of gravy).

I wonder how much is my cholesterol level now.

Better resume my exercise routine. I generally try to watch my diet but sometimes I lapse into gluttony. If I don't exercise some control over what I eat now, in future I'd surely be letting things like High Blood Pressure/ High Cholesterol control my life.

The search for a PDA/ Phone replacement

Dec 21, 2006
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My PDA (a Tungsten-T Palm) and my mobile phone (a very old model -- Nokia 6100) are still functional but lately they have been showing signs that I need to upgrade.

The PDA's touchscreen calibration goes wonky very often, so much so that it affects productivity. On several occasions, the total time it took to re-calibrate was longer than the time needed to complete a memo. The mobile phone is still working, although sometimes the screen gets very dim for no reason. A camera with the phone might be useful (although a phone is still a phone to me -- for taking and making calls). So all in all, while I'm not desperate to replace them immediately, I've been looking and asking around.

Rokr_e6

Recently I learnt about this new model, a Motorola ROKR E6. I wonder if it's a good replacement for my PDA and phone. Looking at its specs, it does seem to have enough of what I want now and for intermediate future needs.

Talking to knowledgeable friends, they advice that I should look for something that is primarily a PDA with a Phone (rather than a phone with PDA functions). Apparently, current technology is such that you can't have both -- you either get a good PDA function rather than phone, and vice versa.

Since I'll be synchronising the PDA entries with my Mac, I was also advised to make sure the phone I'll be getting is listed under Apple's OSX iSync Devices page. Looks like the new phone isn't listed.

Well, I'll wait and see.

Acoustic hammering

Dec 17, 2006
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Awsome Guitar Player

Not that sort of hammering, but "hammer-ons" as in the guitar technique (the principle is the same as how you get sounds from the piano, where the striker hits the strings inside the piano). Anyway, enjoy!

I wonder if the same thing would happen in Singapore

Dec 17, 2006
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I've admired the works of Child Of Atom ever since I found my way to his art blog. There's this quality to his sketches of people in the subway. I've wondered how he's managed to sketch them without the fellow commuter take issue with them being observed. Now I know the answer from the video in this post!

One of the most frequent questions I get about my subway sketches is whether anyone ever notices me or objects to what I'm doing. Well it's in San Fran, not NYC but I offer this as proof that no one pays attention to or is bothered by ANYTHING that might happen while on public transport:

Lotus on the Ceiling

BTW, he's launched a show called "A-Lines: Scenes from the subway", 1 Dec 2006 to 12 Jan 2007. If you're in Houston Texas, maybe you want to drop by. I have to be contented with reading and viewing his blogger and flickr posts (not that I'm complaining).

Freeware for Windows

Dec 14, 2006
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If you're a Windows user and you're looking for freeware, you'd get a kick out of this:
http://www.econsultant.com/i-want-freeware-utilities/index.html

Postcards for 2007

Dec 12, 2006
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I had some markers lying around (my brother's actually) and a wad of watercolour paper bought a year ago. Only a few days to 2007. Decided to make postcards on a whim:

Details here, and here.

This is classic Singlish

Dec 9, 2006
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Do you understand the following (expressed in Singlish)?

Matthew is kooning until damn shiok one morning.

For the uninitiated, it means the following:
"One morning, I found Matthew sleeping so soundly".

Kooning => "Koon", as in Hokkien dielect for "Sleep"
Shiok => to mean "Extremely Satisfied" or equivalent. E.g. "Blogging makes me feel shiok"

If you're still confused, view the accompanying picture (although viewing the picture is not stricly necessary for understanding Singlish). LOL.

White Nights (musical mash-up)

Dec 7, 2006
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It started from this, combined with this, to end up with this. Not too bad for a mashup of sorts! Credits to Vanessa for her percussion and bass intro.

Details at MyRightBrain.