JustJack

I am not sure how many of you still remember Tevin Campbell. But those from my age range would surely remember one or two songs from him when you hear it. One is “Can we talk ” the other is ” I am ready”. Used to know his songs thru 98.7fm.. the pop radio station. Say it with music is probably the program that we really tuned in back in yesteryears for those mushy and funny dedications. Now looking back .. its all the same yet its all so fresh and fun to listen to ….

Remember the yesteryears where were can only “accidentally” listen to our favourite songs on radio. No CDs ( no money ) no cassettes..  just radio and a lot of luck. But now thankgod there is youtube. I can search for all these songs to help me feel yesteryear again.

Do have a listen to this song will u ? This is a nice song. Go youtube and type ” Kevin Campbell Can we talk ” Hope it will tune u back to some 1990s….

Can we Talk by Tevin Campbell

Last night I,
I saw you standing,
And I started,
Started pretending,
I knew you and you knew me too,
And just like a roni,
You were too shy,
But you weren’t the only,
‘Cause so was I,
And I’ve dreamed of you ever since,
Now I’ve built up my comfidence,
Girl next,
next time you come my way,
I’ll know just what to say,CHORUS:
Can we talk for a minute,
Girl I want to know you name,
Can we talk for a minute,
Girl I want to know your name

I started,
To write you letters,
But I wanted,
To be more clever,
I wanted to get down and sweet talk to you,
But just like a baby,
I could not talk
I tried to come closer but could not walk,
And I think of it every night,
How I just could not get it right,
If we ever come close again,
I know what I’ll say then

CHORUS

Oh girl, one more chance,
With you again,
I will not let it go,
Oh please give me just one more chance,\
For love

CHORUS

Elton John Concert : Elton John and His Band 2008 Singapore

The stage was half-fucked. Something like a normal school big event stage. The backdrop of the stage was just a simple big piece of black cloth. Only LCD projector was used. There were only 6 people on the stage including Elton. And yes you can see masking tape stitching the poorly maintained make shift carpets for the stage.

To even think this is the stage for Sir Elton John is unthinkable. Doesn’t the queen himself deserve or expects more from his quality productions?

I checked my clock, I was 15 mins late ( traditionally so ) thinking that Mrs Elton will be an hour late or so. The indoor stadium filled up like a sponge, slowly but steadily. Far cry from any Chinese concerts where you see young Chinese kids holding light sticks and support banners. All I found were groups of Caucasians holding asian beer in one hand and an asian girl in the other. The crowd held an average age of 35 year old. I was probably why the average wasn’t higher.

The lights dimmed linearly with the rising of the crowds noise. I found myself no more than 20 metres away from Elton’s Piano. Premium seats in my opinion just without premium prices. My clock read 8:30pm. The crowd stood straighter than when the national anthem played. The queen has arrived.

The atmosphere was transient and I am not sure how I would want to describe the sight of him on stage. Elton John, Singapore, Me, 2008 just didn’t gel well together with reality. He raised his arms in the air as if he won the world cup hailing to his supporters. Donned in long black trench coat with a huge cross worn in front of his chest resting nicely on the bulge of his ever bloated stomach and that blue tinted spectacles says that’s he cleared the customs without being mistaken at all as Elton John.

He sat down without a word played his piano. The flimsy LCD screen was showing a cut zooming in on him playing the keys. There you find the fattest and oldest 10 fingers in the world floating across the piano keys. The sound was superb. His band ramped up and the combination was heavenly. This is concert. This is why all he brought was his smelly grey carpets and a black back drop. Because he didn’t need the rest of the glitz. He is the only Glitz.

I see happy faces around me. Mostly in their 30s, coming with their better half. This lady who stood, or should I say danced beside me came in formal office wear but pulled out her top from her skirt to let loose a little. All the people were standing and my Bushnell high resolution binoculars told me that even the further seats held crazy fans who swayed to his songs.

My Bushnell high resolution binoculars was my answer to make my 100 dollar ticket looks like 500 dollar premium seats. I spent time looking at Elton himself. His is a happy man too.

Experiencing Now

Attended the IT fair that just passed at Suntec last weekend. This is the first time i really took time to visit one without my wife or friend. Result of this is outing with myself has proven hilarious and eye opening.

The IT fair never fails to amaze me on how disgustingly irresponsible Singaporean/PRs are when they attend this fair be it being the vendor or the purchaser. It spells the shortest life span of any brochures print in this world. The electronic big names employs part-time job thirsty undergrads to give away brochures to consumers like us who dumps it immediately into the paper boxes just 3 steps away.

Information overload. How do you choose a laptop with 20 brochures and 10,000 people rubbing shoulders plus half-educated ah bengs shouting out discounted prices of their products across the exhibition halls ?

What is the best response when any of the eager to serve kid asks you " Hi looking for laptops ? " most will keep quiet and walked on. Polite ones will say " looking around only "

So this is a mass orgy to celebrate technogy. Come together to feel the opulence of retailer and consumer. The taxi queue is formed by a line of trolleys that came free with the printer you buy. Amazing. Everyone has something to buy. Everything comes with free giftssss. And free gifts always comes with its usual price if bought separately to show u how much you have gained.

Only Singapore has the quality in its consumers to stage such a distorted retail extravaganza every 3 months.

IT Fair has spread its roots into unseen territories. We are seeing more laptop sales than desktop. This is fair. Probably the only logical thing that happened for this IT Fair. because at the most conspicous entrance of the 6th floor exibition hall you will find yourself slapped with bright sale tags for FRIDGE and WASHING MACHINES. I am not sure whether they are to freeze your overheated Intel Chips or to WASh off the virus in your harddisc. But they are there. Hiding at one corner, but not wasting time at all is SINGAPORE POOLS trying to get people to set up phone betting accounts at the IT fair. I will spare the credit card companies because they are suppose to be everywhere. But most absurdly Nutrisoy trying to give out samples and selling SOYA BEAN MILK at the IT fair. This means this is not an IT fair afterall. Just a big scale Pasar Malam.

I did my national day parade thru 4th and 6th floor, stopped momentarily to speak to the standing soldiers of the IT Fair asking seemingly in depth questions to make them feel important. It was a friday early afternoon so the crowd was just nice for the oxygen percentile to remain healthy.

A few products did interest me though.

Trend spotter number 1 - more are taking MP3 players seriously. So we have good people from Samsung and Sony selling Mp3 players at cheap affordable price ( just because it is time to clear old stock to make way for the new stock ). I remember the good days 10 years back when i first got my FIRST MP3 player ( the brand was Wewa, Taiwan brand ) it was state of the art 128 MEGABYTE mp3 player with NO expandable memory. I can store 30 songs in it , 32 if i am lucky. Then i knew MP3 players will surely be the next big thing. The very fact that a lipstick size gadget can bring music to the ears with almost no pocket space needed is just bliss. Think walkman and CD player. Think jeans pocket. Not very sexy without an MP3 player.

Now we have 4 gig player with expandable memory wih video play back voice recording plus radio and a clock. Enuff to steal a good portion of any companies trade secrets with your MP3 player.

The next IT fair will come before i forget about this episode. Lets see whether my dream MP3 player will be at half the cost or perhaps appear as a free gift with the next washing machine i buy .

Recently I bought a new phone - LG Viewty ( catchy catch line - view the next technology ). Why did I decide to write this review ? Well i think there is a lack of good indepth review about this phone out there so i just want to put my few cents worth for readers.

Firstly the big question. why am i a sucker to buy it. I am really really not sure. i think it is the fact that no one really wants to buy it. LG has been pushing this phone with lots of advertisement on paper and TV media. I have yet to come across 2 person having this phone now. I am highly curious why this is so because this phone boast the first 5 mega pixel phone with 120 frames per second video recording. This is definitely a first for camera phones.

So i guess curiosity kills a cat. If i do not lay my hands on one i would not be convinced that this is a lousy phone that no one wants it.

This phone cost SGD 838 dollars retail price off the shelve with no strings attached. But i signed a plan with Starhub and got this at SGD 338 dollars. And with the loyalty voucher i got from starhub it cost me 100 dollars less so i paid $238. And this phone was in promotion with Jeff Chang Concert tickets. I got a pair of tickets for free ( each worth SGD 90) so essentially i paid about $50 for this phone. 

The packaging of this phone is superb. I have never seen a better packaging. LG actually bothers with the phone box and packaging. Each of the component comes with a nice sleek black box with nice silver font saying what is inside. The sevral small blackboxes snuggles nicely in the main box which is a hard cased cardboard box. Nice sleek. No complains. You get what you paid for ( for the packging at least)

The first thing that strikes me is not the phone. it is the little stylus that comes along with it. This stylus is like NO other stylus that you have seen in the market because it is retractable. And it retracts into a lip stick like cap. very very sleek but also very very " gu niang". My stylus is still in the box. come to think of it .. only LG dares to design a phone without a stylus slot. it is suppose to hang dangling off one corner of the phone as an accesory ! Cool and not cool.

ok come back to the phone functions. This phone lacks nothing. it has everything you would love to have so i will not go through the obvious. I will just highlight the touch screen. it is a good one. The LG icons are nice and the touch screen key pad comes with a vibration when you touch a button to simulate a "real" key pressing down. This is a pretty cool function. Sensitivity wise i would give it an average because the touch screen cant scroll that well but it works really well on button tapping.

The camera works like a beauty. Really the selling point. it comes with some funky photoshoot options like panaroma which produce a rather decent job. Video recording is easy to use as well.

It does take sometime to get use to tapping on a flat screen for messaging and dailing but it is just a phase that you need to go thru breaking into a phone.

One draw back about this phone perhaps is the phone’s PC suite. it is not design by the best programmers in the world. It is a challenge to decipher how the designer want you to work with it. Highly not intuitive but then we get by. But for sure this is one area LG would like to improve on.

I will give this phone a 8/10 overall score. despite the intial irritating phase of gettng use to the phone touch screen and software. it is a beauty itself because everyday you discover one more function it can perform. little surprises that comes along.

The best thing i think is that not many has it. you can easily churn a topic when you bump into anyone by flashing your phone. simply a beauty.

I was walking along Bugis Junction when the news of MC King ‘ death( Jimmy Nah, Lan Qing Xi ) came like the sudden rain that afternoon over the radio. Of all stations i knew about this thru Symphony 92.4. What a tragedy for many of us. I have got to say my heart sank to a new low.

Many Many of us knows MC King from his earlier works in the long running SBC drama where he was known as the MC King. The name stuck to him ever since that we have almost forgotten his real name.

I must admit that I have been watching his growth especially in the last one or two years. He has gained momentum in his career and I am very lucky to get to know more about him when he was doing part time DJ-ing on 97.2Fm with his friend at the radio station. I learnt a great deal from him and his character during the running of his program over the air.

Articles strewn all over the local chinese papers about his death and his funeral. True enough many describe him as a person who is frank and does not like to hide his view and opinion which i fully concur. He has shown a lot of his ideas and thinking thru his program over the radio. The laughther he brings comes straight from my heart and I often find the things he says truly nourishing even days after i hear his program.

The falling of a childhood star….. he was a star because hsi name stuck to my mind and to many of you out there too. We may not know him personally but his death causes a tremor in my heart. Perhaps it slaps us on the face of new year telling us that life is fragile. It also tells us that many things or people that we have taken for granted would just leave someday somehow before we even have time to react.

I suddenly remembered another local comedian Hua Liang, Da Zui Ba ( Big mouth ) who died a good couple of years ago due to a car accident. He struggled a few days before passing away in his coma.

I would like to say thank you to MC King. I mayb never have known him even if he is still alive. But this is a good chance for me to be thankful for him being a part of my life ( certainly again to many out there ). He didnt die old and comfy . His sudden part brings the sharpest rememberance of him. Thanks for your asthmatic laugh which is so signature of you .

Below is his Blog.

http://mcking13.spaces.live.com/default.aspx

Type www.youtube.com type negarakuku click search.

A must see for all Malaysians and also Singaporeans who cares. I cannot thank the guy more as he delivered to us the best concentrate of Malaysia in the song. ( free )

Heard that the garmen is gonna catch him when he comes back to Malaysia. Hope he does not get catch coz he is a good guy afterall. A normal malaysian.

Wish him well and i wish he continues with this movement. Not a revolution but a wake up call to those who thinks they should be pulling up their socks a bit.

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0BYtWTls5bMXgQ

Some pictures I took in my recent trip to Sabah. Enjoy.

Regards,

Yen

just read a blog of a friend of mine. i thought perhaps i should pen down something as well since i have a little quiet time today.

like what my friend has written also in his blog about quiet time. i guess many of us now living in the city has a lack of quiet time. simple because we are so surrounded with stimulations. be it visual,sound. too much. and yet we got so used to it that we thought they are not there.

even internet surfing is a stimulation. quietness in our definition is no longer just being in a room doing nothing. quietness has lost its true meaning because we thought by justing doing nothing we are quietened. but no. our handphones are still on, our tv are still on, our radios are still on.

this bombardment is something i always feel un-used to. because the true quietness comes from not wanting all these being around me. the need of not needing the phone to be on. the need of needing the tv to be on. and so so many things.

doing nothing is probably the hardest thing that i can do now.

i am recently going to go thru changes job change to be speciic. i guess it has kept me busy for a while and made me so not quiet. i am needed to make so many decisions that i thought i can handle but i know it is making me tired and not really have time for myself. but i know i have got to go thru it. just a job change alone is just so tiring. but i know it is for the better just because i know i am better than what i am.

i wish for peacefulness soon. after the hustle bustle.. i wanna be quiet again.

quiet.undisturbed.relaxed.