歌曲介绍： 《昇F大調行版》 by 伍思凯

我想应该有很多人听过张韶涵的《C大调》，可是应该没几人能记得伍思凯曾经创作一首《昇F大調行版》。

这是一首很短，很小品的歌，可是却对我的音乐领悟有很深的影响。因为它让我明白了音乐可以那么的轻柔又简单，可是却又能丝丝入扣，让人在一瞬间心情平伏下来。

这就是音乐的魔力，而此小品尽展无疑... ...


昇F大調行版　詞曲:鄭華娟　編曲:伍思凱
　　
你是誰 能不問我就知道我傷悲
你是誰 能為我拭心上淚
你是誰 能夠為我等待為我憔悴
你是誰 陪我哭泣陪我醉

夢的血液 孤單的身體
飄浮在這人海裏 如果月亮隨風搖曳
我會想著你

多少苦我都經歷 愛不能變言語
多少恨只能忘記 當真心被拋棄

Movie Review: Ninja Assassin (2009) M18 Rating

Alright, I just returned from the movie "Ninja Assassin" and I thought it really had some superb action scenes - definitely too gory for most of the under-18-year-olds because blood was copious and bodies were dismembered in horrifyingly sudden ways, but it was jaw-dropping and vicious. I think it really gives a very realistic view of how deadly martial combat is and a moment's hesitation would bring death so quickly and those ninjas did not hesitate at all, which is probably why they are so good in their job.

The plot follows how Raizo was brought up from a child in a top-secret mountain stronghold to be one of the deadly assassins in the Ozunu Clan (aka The Black Sand Clan) and during the course of the very brutal training, befriended a fellow female student who taught him about the value of a beating heart and a freedom beyond the strict regime of Ozunu. Raizo, eventually, betrayed the clan and allied himself with a forensic researcher from an intelligence agency. They were trailed by the rest of the assassins and a number of bloody fights ensued.

The final scene culminated when Raizo carried a homing beacon inside him for a large group of international special forces operatives to track him all the way back to the mountain stronghold of Ozunu. Both groups went all out with bullets, shurikens, swords and rocket launchers against each other while Raizo fought his nemesis in his class before taking on the Ozunu teacher himself.

I thought the last fight was a bit over the top because the movie did not explain how Raizo could still summon enough strength to fight his ninja sensei when he was slashed and cut and torn to nearly oblivion by his sensei who had an amazing skill to semi-teleport in and out of the fight. I suppose that was to address that ninjas had developed superhuman strength, endurance and speed to withstand that kind of injuries and pain to begin with.

All in all, I would want to give a A for the action scenes because of their realism, but falling short of an A+ because the lighting in the movie was too dark to justify all the efforts put in by Rain and the stuntmen. Those somersaults in mid-fight were real but it was too dark for those not accustomed to fighting scenes to see properly. It was a real pity because I thought they really practiced supremely hard for the movie.

The plot would only garner a C+ because the movie did not address how Rain could have escaped the Ozunu Clan's assassinations for so long and who passed Raizo the message to save that forensic researcher from harm. I also find it difficult to see how Raizo could quickly defy his ninja sensei after finishing his first assassination attempt in the male toilet with very little account of his character development or inner thoughts. I also could not understand how come a large group of international special forces operatives could be deployed when it was described in the movie that the Ozunu Clan was regularly hired by many governments in the world for assassination jobs at the price of 100 pounds of gold per head. I thought the governments would gain more if they kept the Ozunu Clan instead of eradicating it.

A 2.5 popcorn out of 5 popcorn. It was a little disappointing for me because it's been so long since a movie about ninjas was made but I hope the standards would improve even more with this movie as a modern benchmark.

Ninja Assassin 2009 (NC18) Looking forward to watch it

This is one movie that I am just waiting to watch in a few days' time. The trailer looks cool but what appeals to me if all that mystery and magic behind those masked assassins. Reminds me of the days when I first watched American Ninja 1 and 2 - those movies looked really cheesy now but they were considered the pioneers for starting all the ninja fantasy in the movies and now after more than 30 years, we now have this...



Cool right? And just when you think most of the fighting in the trailer alone must have been done with computer graphics and lots of wires in the air...take a look at this video behind the scenes...



Wow...all those hard work put in by Rain and the team of stuntmen is enough motivation for me just pay that movie ticket. I know most of the movie reviews seem to say the movie plot is quite thin but for the sake of the action-junkie inside me, I think I will like this movie at least for the action and sincerity behind all those practices to make the scenes realistic. Will tell all you readers what I have witnessed in the movie as soon as I can.

Have a good week ahead meanwhile! ^__^

Movie Review: 2012

I finally found time to watch this movie and get to blog about it. The story revolves around how a down-and-out author had to struggle to reconnect with his estranged family who is living separately when he encountered a seemingly-mad radio deejay who told him about the coming of the end of the world, showed him photos of the unfortunate politicians and scientists, who tried to tell the world the truth, were assassinated in freak accidents, and whispered about a map where spaceships were being built to escape the apocalyptic changes that were about to come.

The male lead, acted by John Cusack, began by recklessly pawning his watch to a pilot at an airfield and quickly drove to his family in a bid to prevent disaster from happening to his loved ones. What happens from there is a series of death-defying escape on a mini-airplane as the family raced to try and reach the secret base in China where a flotilla of special ships were designed to carry a selected few to safety. There are obviously problems to this plan - the plan is too small to make the trans-oceanic trip, the Chinese military might shoot them, and they would not be able to afford seats on those spaceships - ten billion eurodollars per seat.

How are they going to reach safety amidst the chaos of sinking continents, exploding volcanoes, gigantic earthquakes, and yet juggle with human selfishness, selfless courage and elitist attitudes of the rich and the powerful? I am not going to spoil the movie by telling too much - go watch and find out yourself.

What I can offer as feedback for this movie review are:

1) The male lead seems to be so lucky that he doesn't feel real to be able to escape those disasters unscathed.

2) Hijacking planes from airports seem really easy.

3) I loved the speech given by one of the actors who appealed to the world leaders onboard those spaceships to open the doors to save those who had no tickets.

4) The disaster scenes are by far the best I had ever seen but the movie's touching moments could not outdo those from Deep Impact and the movie's humorous scenes could not outdo Armageddon. Those two movies are what I considered to be really impressive disaster movies about the end of our world.

Armageddon Movie Trailer


Deep Impact Movie Trailer


5) I don't know if 2012 will be the end of our world but I do know we should be doing what we ought to be doing - living our lives the best ways that we can instead of procrastinating, complaining, lamenting or worrying.

End of review. Time to take my nap. Zzzz...

RAZORTV's videos on the three upcoming local singers whom I am covering recently

I thought the impromptu performances and interviews from RazorTV's entertainment videos are really interesting to watch. Some seemed well-prepared whilst some just take it as it goes along. Come to think of it - it's really not easy to do so.

The album's songs seem to be catering to a niche market but it's still encouraging to see local young singers willing to take the leap and learn their way to realize their dreams.

黄业翔

叶慧馨

黄秀莹

The three singers on their dreams and time management

黄宏墨 (The album producer behind these three singers)

Singapore Children's Society Project Cabin Camp 2009 9 Nov to 11 Nov

I have just returned from the above-mentioned camp as a volunteer group leader and this blog post is all about all the interesting encounters that have happened during this camp. The objective of the camp is to enrich the values of the students using the core motto of the camp for this year "No Man Is An Island".

The camp started on 09 November 2009 (Monday) from Bukit Merah Student Hub Centre with a group of 10 staff, 9 volunteers and 64 Cabin Club students and the entire group traveled all the way to Pasir Ris Holiday Flats and Dormitories for the residential part of the camp.

I was in charge of one of the eight groups of students and was also in charge of a group of 14 students in the male dormitory whilst the rest of the campers were residing either inside the female dormitory or the holiday flats. It will be too cluttered to write everything inside this post so I will just highlight some of the major events and what I considered to be really memorable encounters during the camp itself.

Night Trail at Pasir Ris Park Mangrove Boardwalk:

This was one of the biggest event for Day One where students would have to traverse the Mangrove Boardwalk in pitch dark conditions to reach five different stations within the Boardwalk to perform certain activities to earn tokens for a subsequent camp event the following day.

Although each of the groups, led by a volunteer group leader, was allowed to bring torch lights, the lighting conditions inside the Boardwalk were so bad that none of the torches could shine beyond 5 meters before the darkness enveloped each group. Hence, the Night Trail was of considerable challenge to students who had to overcome their individual fear of the dark and rely on the strength and courage of the group to complete the tasks at hand.

Special Encounter - Dark Presence in the Forest:

(Disclaimer: I am not advocating any idea of superstition or negating any form of religious beliefs here. I am merely stating what I have encountered during the camp.)

During the second station, where each group was supposed to visit a unmanned pavilion to search for some tokens in a treasure chest, my group, which was the last one, made quite a racket in the darkness, talking and discussing loudly about the search for the tokens when I noticed the surrounding darkness becoming "thicker" and "thicker".

Logically, darkness should only constitute the color of black, but the longer my group lingered at the station (they were really keen on finding every single token), the darkness surrounding the pavilion seemed to have increased its shade of black multiple times over in the space of a few minutes and the surrounding air became much colder.

Realizing something was amiss, I quickly warned my group to keep their volume down and exit the station as quickly as they could. As we were leaving the pavilion (I placed myself as the last person of the group), a deep chill ran down the entire length of my spine and I felt a huge dark presence standing right behind me. I remembered what my National Service platoon commander told me - resist the temptation to look back in the middle of the forest so I did exactly that - I walked quietly without a word as my entire group proceeded to the next station.

For what it seemed like an eternity, the dark presence followed right behind me, and I had to resist the urge to push my group to go faster lest I aroused the curiosity of the students who might look back at me. We prodded until the next station was nearly in sight and suddenly the dark presence just stopped following me and seemed to have turned back. The cold chill in my spine disappeared instantly as well.

When I reached home, I "googled" what I had encountered and realized that dark presences are part of paranormal activities and cross-checking with some of the more experienced ones revealed that a possibility of that particular dark presence was a manifestation of what they would call as a shadow giant - an ancient of the dark dimension that resides in extremely dark places. Reputed sizes of these shadow giants could reach up to several stories high. According to what I had estimated, that dark presence was at least 9 feet tall so it could have tallied with what the experienced ones had said.

Thankfully, that shadow giant seemed more intent on escorting the entire group out of its territory than on harming us. I was so worried that the students in my group might be harmed in any way while it was following us for that seemingly forever few minutes. I am going to stay away from that particular pavilion from now onwards.

Loss: Thankfully none.
Gain: +1 Luck, +1 Wisdom

Outdoor Fun at VivoCity:

The second major camp activity was on Day Two where the groups had to weave in and out of the many shops within VivoCity to try and compare prices of items. Simply put, they are supposed to find items starting with a set number of letters in the alphabet and to collate the prices of these items. The group with the lowest prices from all these items wins. The activity was enormously draining because groups had to run around the entire VivoCity to fulfill the task which was further interspersed with three game stations that they had to find using only clues.

Special Encounter - The Defiant Rebel

My group, in my opinion, was the most difficult group to lead in the entire camp. That was because the group was fractured into very different groups - half the group had such close friends who were allocated to other groups was always clinging onto their friends for most of the time, refusing to temporarily leave their cliques even for the camp. The other half consisted of loners who barely uttered more than twenty sentences in the forty-eight-hour camp, sleepy heads who would grab any possible time to return to the sleeping quarters to nap, and rebels who would want to defy any instructions because their philosophy of life was "rules are meant to be broken".

What I considered to the most obnoxious rebel happened to be in my group. During the Outdoor Fun activity at VivoCity, he was shouting and ordering another volunteer group leader around at one of the game stations in front of many groups and members of the public that I had to yell at him to shut up. Although I was given pre-camp advice that "everyone had some good in them", I did not seem to see what good was there in that blatantly rude behavior of that Obnoxious Rebel.

After lodging a seriously-worded complaint with the relevant staff member from the Singapore Children's Society, a meeting between that staff member, the Obnoxious Rebel and myself was convened later that afternoon where the student in error apologized for his behavior, citing the reason that all his friends had always been giving way to his antics. I explained that although some rules could be broken given the circumstances, not all rules and decorum are to be abandoned at the cost and embarrassment of so many innocent others. I also told him that his actions at VivoCity had put his fellow groups to shame, offended the other volunteer group leader, disgraced his authority over the other group's campers and brought bad light to Singapore Children's Society in the eyes of those members of the public who witnessed the incident.

The Obnoxious Rebel subsequently tried to participate and cooperate more actively in the remaining activities without a single word of complaint and the camp eventually passed with no further incident or conflict. I learned that some rebellious youths expected everyone to give way to them and to understand their every action and word, no matter what the potential consequences are. I also understood that I had, and will continue to have, nearly zero tolerance for selfish individuals when they are supposed to take into consideration the best interests of the group before themselves.

Loss: The remaining members of the group caught on his bad example of rebelling and began to laze during most of the camp, making my work even harder at times.
Gain: +1 Speech, +1 Knowledge

The Night Watch at Pasir Ris Holiday Compound:

On the final night of the Project Cabin Camp 2009, all the nine volunteers agreed to take over the night watch duties for the entire camp compound so the over-worked staff members could take some much-needed rest. What followed was a night of eating, drinking, playing, observing and catching of some naughty campers who tried to slip out of their sleeping quarters for unknown objectives.

The nine volunteers dragged out a number of chairs and arranged them in a circle in the middle of the only road running through the camp compound at around 12.30am. We also lugged our favorite items with us to accompany us for the long watch of nearly 6 hours ahead of us - soft toys, mini pillows, torch lights, windbreakers, ipods, video cameras and not forgetting, loads of packet drinks, snacks and leftover food from that night's buffet dinner.

For nearly an hour, the volunteers were talking about some of their most interesting personalities within their respective groups. At around 1.30am, we began to play the game "Murderer" to pass time. Believe me, it was really difficult in the semi-darkness to see those winks and we had a lot of fun trying to find out who the murderer and the detective was. We surely had a good laugh over one of the volunteers who seemed to be always one of the first victims to be "killed", one of the most unobservant detectives who took a long time to seek out the murderer and also one of the most reluctant murderer who took a long time to seek out his victims. To sum it up, we labeled him as the worst player for the game which he still took it within his stride in good sport. ^__^

Special Encounter - The "Night Crawlers"

Somewhere around 3am to 4am, two of the male campers tried to slip out of their holiday flat quarters for reasons unknown. A stealthy and quiet opening of the door followed by two crawling figures in the semi-darkness. However, my night vision was better than what they had expected and I already spotted their movements and pointed out the little misadventure. One of the volunteers immediately recognized the identities of the crawling figures and quickly ran up to stop them from crawling towards a back stairway.

The volunteers continued their night watch by playing a prank on one of the female volunteers who had just returned from a regular patrol session around the camp compound. The prank was hilariously simple - totally ignore the presence of that volunteer as if she had already returned to the sleeping quarters to sleep. The results was wriggling fun as the volunteer was stomping her feet and going around "strangling" all the volunteers seated at the circle, only to be answered with "Oh my god! I felt something touching my neck! Was it the wind?"

The whole prank continued to balloon with the inclusion of the "Flying Plastic Fork". The female volunteer had a white plastic fork in her mouth then and we all commented with pretentious awe that a "holy fork" had joined the circle of night watch and whenever the "holy fork" moved, we would hail it as some sort of divine sign of communication. The end result - the female volunteer was so tickled that she played along with the game and used the fork to continue some silly charade for another hour or so.

When the night watch ended the next morning, I thought to myself - it was definitely the most entertaining and enjoyable night watch that I had ever participated in as the jokes were great, the pranks were hilarious and the watch was fruitful with another four more students caught walking out of their sleeping quarters before the reverie hour was approaching. If I had another chance to go on another night watch, I would definitely seek the company of those eight people.

Loss: I only managed to grab 15 minutes of sleep after my night watch duties ended.
Gain: +1 Fun, +1 Experience in Night Watch

The volunteers were under strict instructions not to take any photos or videos of students during the camp so as to protect the identities of these students whom the Singapore Children's Society consider as children/youths-at-risk. Hence, I could only take back memories and recollections on this blog. The following are some of the more scenic pictures that I had taken.

The sunrise photograph was taken on the morning of Day 3 when I was nearing the end of my guard duty. I was stretching myself and waiting for the campers to wake up when I noticed the beautiful sunrise creeping up from the tree horizon.
The sky was full of alto-cumulus clouds - small and fluffy like numerous cotton buds. It provided a really serene touch to that particular morning. It has been so long since I could find time to cloud-watch and snap such pictures. What a beautiful world of Nature if one could only stop and smell the flowers and feel the breeze.
As a volunteer group leader and dormitory in-charge, my in-camp schedule was usually so tightly-packed that I could only have time to put up a picture of the dinner that was handed to us during Day One - packet lunch with rice, eggs, chicken pieces, beancurd and mixed vegetables. It tasted delicious because I was already famished from all the work from settling in the campers, briefings and ice-breakers.

黄宏墨《这一切都会过去》创作珍集藏版2 新歌发布会

黄宏墨《这一切都会过去》创作珍集藏版2 新歌发布会:

我很荣幸被邀去看场新歌发布会，并决定把所看和听到的，写在我小小博客栏上，让对本地音乐有兴趣的读者能有更多的资讯。

这发布会在勿兰图书馆底层的室内会议场举办，从下午两点至四点半。

我在两点二十五分入座。
会场内有好多人呀。据我估计，应该有两百五十人出席，反应热烈。

黄宏墨终于在司仪的介绍后，在两点三十五分入场，正式开始了发布会。
黄宏墨说他的创作灵感来自庄子之道，并说平衡生活是件很重要的事。
黄宏墨和他的歌坛老战友“锦祥”一起弹奏合音， 唱了首《桃花红红》的闵南语台湾民谣曲。虽然默契有加，可是黄宏墨却说唱得没有彩排时好。
三位由黄宏墨亲自调教的新人，打头阵先锋的是十八岁的叶慧馨。在司仪的鼓励下，清唱了萧亚轩的一首《爱的主打歌》，声线宏亮，为新人的阵团打响了第一炮。叶慧馨虽然在司仪发问下，回答得有点战战兢兢，可是她接下来所呈献在专辑里的一首《将你的心装上翅膀》，很快得又回复了自信，唱得清亮又有活力，现场的歌唱和台风实力，也博得一轮热烈的掌声。我个人认为她在握麦克风时，似乎用麦克风不一样的位置发音，结果歌唱时音量时大时小声，有待注意这小瑕疵。
很抱歉接下来的几张照片很膜糊，因为我的手机实在太不中用了，灯光一变，就拍得很差了。打中阵的是十九岁的黄秀莹。黄宏墨选了两首他认为对秀莹很不公平的歌曲，因为词曲都很成熟，所以秀莹要驾驭这两首歌并非易事。第一首《朝花夕拾》，因为现场经验不足，黄秀莹唱得有点吃力，可是黄宏墨一再勉励，黄秀莹终于拿出勇气，把她的第二首《爱你上了瘾》，唱得淋漓尽致，发挥了歌曲中淡淡的陶醉。我认为黄秀莹的高音和尾音都处理得很好，只不过台风蛮僵硬的，得多多磨练在不同的场合发挥水准才行。
压轴的是黄宏墨一再推举的黄业翔。他以一首慢歌《梦中情缘》来让现场观众看到他深情诠释的一面，然后以他更擅长的舞蹈带来专辑的主打歌曲《这一切都会过去》。 劲歌热舞把现场搞得沸沸腾腾的，确实是新人阵团压轴的适当人选。黄业翔现场的舞蹈魅力感染度高，而且舞得自信满满，唯一能挑的是他在唱的某些部份，咬字有点含糊不清，整体表现就稍微扣了点分。

我其实还有些笔录还没添加，可是明天我还有露营活动，有些事项配备还得打理，过几天等我回来再补上，好吗？我答应你们一直默默支持我小小博客的读者们，我一定会把这篇写完。你们要祝我露营一切都顺利喔！^__^ Updated on 15 Nov 2009: 黄宏墨接着介绍了他在歌坛上的战友，并把他们邀上台，和观众分享了创作的心得。
黄宏墨也介绍了《野鸽子的黄昏》和《长恨歌》，并也道说一把价值八百万新币的古典小提琴在机缘下为《长恨歌》的录音伴奏。
两位歌手在十八年后再一次合唱《花约》，默契依然，功力不减当年。
发布会最后邀请了所有的表演者和嘉宾一同上台，合唱一首《源》做为压轴曲－虽然很多嘉宾对歌词不熟悉，可是大家唱得随意自在，观众也听得窝心。必竟，能三代歌手同台献唱，是件非常难得的事了。完结篇。

Enjoying Fallout 3 again on new PC, Reward Lunch at Swensen's, Conversations Between A Master and A Disciple

Enjoying Fallout 3 again on new PC:

Finally, after two weeks of deliberation, I had my new PC up and running.

Intel I 7 Quad Core
Gigabyte Motherboard
Vista Home Premium Operating System
4GB Ram
Geforce GTS 250 Graphics Card
500GB SATA HDD
2GB DDR 3
DVD Writer

It's not exactly THE best configuration around the country but according to my computer technician, it's already a very impressive setup which will power the latest games and ensure a good performance whenever I surf the Internet.


Here's a picture of the Quad Core I7 Processor which my technician whistled with approval.

Reward Lunch at Swensen's:

I have been working real hard and clocking overtime so my blogging took a back seat for these two weeks. Just a couple more days and I'll be able to enjoy some seamless rest and recreation, especially when I have a goody computer at home to play around with whenever I am not out meeting my VIP friends.

I took a nice lunch to reward myself for working so hard and ordered at Swensen's Holland Village since I was there to finish up some work. A slow lunch is also good for the mind and body and I took my time to savor it. I think I should do this more often since I've been chowing instant noodles and cornflakes with milk for a disproportionate number of my meals recently.


A picture of the main course - roasted chicken with basil herbs for lunch.

Conversations Between a Master and a Disciple:

Disciple: Master, this is so difficult - why are we working so hard? Life is so impermanent and shouldn't we be enjoying ourselves instead of slogging so hard?

Master: Life is indeed impermanent and far more unpredictable for so many of us yet we should not stop working hard because the more we do, experience and engage, the more we learn. As long as we are learning, we are doing good to the quality of our lives. Of course, we can still enjoy ourselves whilst working but we should not crave quick gratification without the genuine sweetness from hard work.

Disciple: If we are so impermanent, it really makes very little sense to even work so hard. Everything will still come to nil when our lives ran out.

Master: We may lose everything we think we possess the moment we expire but the indirect benefits that we have exerted on the lives of others may endure for many years to come. For example, a soya bean milk seller may have lived out his life but his service to have provided drink and nourishment to so many others may have yielded far greater good that he can ever imagine - those people may in turn bring benefits to further others. So we should commit ourselves to whatever we are at so we may prove to be useful, be it during or after our lifetimes.

Stay tuned. I will have more photos and blog posts coming up, now that I will soon have time to really blog about the things around us. Time for dinner! Bye! ^__^