Vivaz™ Pro

It's time to recontract my phone again (actually that was a couple of months back) and with the $100 off a new mobile if I recontract by end Sep, it's really tempting.

Well, actually I've been thinking about getting a new phone for months now. My current phone is the G900, which is really good, having served me well for the past 2 years. Although it's still working well, I'm tempted, partly because my contract ended and it seemed slightly natural (*guilty*). Ok, considering how some others change phone so frequently, I'm already quite good to wait for over 2 years. And I really research first leh, before I buy, so no suitable phone, I won't go buy for the sake of buying. Anyway, I find the screen a bit small lah, so if I wanted to surf the net, a bit "squinting" for me. I know, these all sound like excuses...

Anyway, I've been considering getting the Vivaz™ earlier part of the year...until the Vivaz™ Pro came out a couple of months back. You can say I waited it out since I checked the "coming soon" and as the Pro is supposed to be the more advanced version, thought I'll just wait and see.

 Vivaz™

Vivaz™ Pro - White

  

Vivaz™ Pro - Black

I must say both the Vivaz™ look about the same, except the Vivaz™ Pro is a slider with a keyboard and is slightly thicker (still slim). Functionality are almost exactly the same, except the Vivaz™ has an 8.1 MGP camera, compared to the 5.1MGP (same as my current phone) of the Vivaz™ Pro. However, Vivaz™ Pro has handwriting recognition and a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, which is easier to type. So I guess I'll choose Vivaz™ Pro instead, despite the Vivaz™having more funky colours like cosmic black and pink.

 However, now I can't decide if I should get the Vivaz™ Pro in white or black. Any suggestions?

"Buttons in the Bread" Theatre Review Blog

My friend and I have recently started this theatre review blog together called 'Buttons In The Bread' to review local theatre productions (actually it was his idea). You can find it here. Well, it's more than 90% on local theatre, except for some, but are at least staged locally.

So over the weekend, I've been busy manually "exporting" what I have reviewed so far, which isn't much...about 30 plus reviews. Most of them are back-dated so that the sequence of the shows are not lost. Well, if you're free, can check out the site.

Chestnuts 3D : yeah yeah yeah

This was my first 'Chestnuts' outing and it was hilarious. Ok, the full name of the show is "Chestnuts 3D: Fried Monty aka A Nightmare on Glee Street Oh Yeah Oh Yeah Oh Yeah!". As you can see, one can expect many subjects, but of course injected with lots of local flavours(or gossip). And true to Jonathan Lim's style (as I heard), it had quite a lot of sexual references, like gay themes or words used to describe various aspects of (you know what). As a general impression, I enjoyed the second part more than the 1st half. The whole show was an array of segments, mixing themes, so I shall go by these, or at least what I remember.

1) A Nightmare on Glee Street (aka Glee vs Freddy)
This was the opening segment and of course, with strong reference to Glee or (Ghee?), a very popular TV series that I sometimes follow. A spoof of Glee would of course not be complete without 'Sue' (Jonathan Lim) who gave a report of what to adopt of Singapore measures. And they threw in Freddy Nightmare, who went around killing the characters off. Actually, I think this segment wasn't so funny unless you follow Glee, and know the characters. It felt a bit long.

2) Customer service contest
The finals of this contest would be providing excellent service as pimps and mamasans. I think the more funny parts were the jokes about SIA girls, like when Judee Tan said "I've been in SIA for 6 years so there's nothing new." (something along that line)

3) The school rugby/club incident(s)
I actually kind of liked this segment as they portrayed the way it would have been if it were to happen in other clubs in school, like the debate society, contemporary dance club, air rifle club, drama club, choir, etc.

4) the IP Man
Ip Man versus I.P. (Intellectual Property) Man. The funniest part of this segment was the subtitling. Although it was a bit fast for some, I guess one tried to catch as many parodies as possible. You've got to understand the Mandarin speech to fully appreciate the jokes where similar sounding Chinese words were translated to hilarious phrases/terms, e.g. 规矩 translated into tortoise department (龟局). Haha...talk about creativity. Think I might look at subtitles differently now.

5) Inception
Opening the 2nd Act was a spoof of Inception. This was a total dig at "the Singapore Dream", i.e. this year's NDP theme of "Live Our Dreams, Fly Our Flag", and it's laws and regulations (specifically fines). One would think about how we've been fed with all these notions of patriotism since young. Not that we're not lah...right?

6) December Drains
Nope, no typo there but a hilarious spoof to the recent Toy Factory musical December Rains. This was one of the main highlights of the show and guess what? Kit Chan was sitting just in front of me! She was enjoying herself nevertheless, laughing lots. A natural inference of "drains" would be the reference of the flooding incidents around the island plus the "50 years theory". Naturally, what Ying Xiong was protesting here would be on this issue and the "people up there" and they really brought out the question in my mind about the song 《抉择》 - 这是梁文福写的吗？Other songs adapted were 《最幸福的事》 (iPhone)、《我该怎么做》 and 《请你告诉他》. Jonathan Lim did very well when he played Kit Chan, if National Day didn't fall on Monday - he alternated between singing Home and 《请你告诉他》. A mighty feat!

7) Ivory Low Ah Kew (aka Ris Low's sister)
A bimbotic display by Judee Tan with all the "Boomz" read as Ivory Low IQ. Ha! She did an excellent job and took digs at YOG and of course, the YOG song by JJ Lin "Oh Yeah", teaching us how to remember the cheer actions. She was a natural as she made seemingly bimbotic responses.

Ah well, there were actually a lot of references but I can't list them all out. What was interesting of the scene transitions was the use of those irritating call transfer mechanisms that companies put in place - "press 1 for...". However, it was a bit over-used, so didn't really have that punch anymore along the way. But it was just to buy time, so I guess it was ok.

The highlights of the show would have to be the spoofs of December Rains and the Ris Low's sister segment, which drew the most laughs and applause. The cast was great with special mention of Judee Tan. Rodney Oliveiro has much improved from when I first saw him on stage (JBJ?), which wasn't that bad lah. I think I saw him on TV before long ago, which wasn't too impressive then. Didn't know he spoke Mandarin. What I didn't enjoy would probably be the times when the joke was lost on me, which might not be a bad thing (coz I think they might have been sexual references), and also the dig at churches (I was especially sensitive when reference to FCBC was made).

Interestingly, the audience were pretty generous in their laughter; they laughed at almost everything, even though I was thinking if those parts were really funny. But it was an entertaining experience.

Fried Rice Paradise

Do you like fried rice? Well, this was the subject of the re-staged musical Fried Rice Paradise by Dick Lee.

Set in the 80s, the story basically revolves around a girl called Bee Lean (Denise Tan) who establishes a business over the secret recipe of her fried rice even as a evil businessman Rickson tries to buy over the shophouses at Jalan Calamansi where her father's shop is. He asks his son Hennessy XO  (Sebastian Tan) to "seduce" her, but who eventually defects to her side as they develop an relationship.

First things first, the sound system didn't seem very good as I heard a lot of "noise" interference, and at some point, some of the mikes became too soft.

I felt the show passable (maybe I had high expectations?), which left me wondering why. I think 1 reason was that each character (even the leads) didn't seem to stand out or portray themselves as strongly as they should. I'm not saying the acting was bad or anything (I mean, you have Sebastian Tan after all), but somehow, I think one couldn't identify with them or was it too many "leads" or not enough development? Like the love story parts weren't so powerful and though the story tries to bring out Bee Lian's strong and enterprising character, it didn't succeed. Maybe too many personal stories going on at the same time? Maybe just like fried rice, there's a bit of everything.
Secondly, I think there was no emotional draw. Ah! maybe there wasn't really high "high"?

Well, the songs were ok but I can't say there were any that were especially memorable, except maybe the well-known Rasa Sayang. Maybe the love songs stood out slighty more like "Dreamgirl" and "That Girl".

However, it had a better overall cast than December Rains in terms of singing. Darius Tan was also pretty good as Rickson. I was hoping to hear more of Sebastian Tan, but nevertheless, he played his good ah-beng character well. The only thing was that Taufik, though wasn't bad in singing, didn't really seem to fit into the show. I've heard him sing before (in Malay in fact) elsewhere and was good, but this show didn't do him justice, nor did it do so for the other members of the cast.

The choreography was not bad too, especially the "plates scene" which needed good coordination (no one dropped a single plate!) and the dance segments. The sets were good too, as with most SRT shows.

I wonder how the original version was like since this was a wholly rewritten version.

Worship Songwriting with Bob Fitts - Day 2

Day 2.
Phew, an "intensive" day yesterday as morning saw us going through some general guidelines on:
1) Creating Creativity (stoking & releasing the creative nature of God's gift in you)
2) Structural Principles predominant in effective songwriting

Of course, Bob emphasized these are just guidelines and our creativity is really unique to us and can't really be taught. Let the Spirit lead.

Then afternoon was the songwriting part where we were given some time to write a song/songs, whether individually or collaborate, and to share it/them at the end, if we're comfortable. Well, I attempted to collaborate, but in the end, it was a bit difficult as my group was a bit unsure how we should go. So we split up.
Wow, there were some really great songs shared by the people and we were all ministered to.
Unfortunately, the song I tried didn't work out, so I shared an old song 《牵引》, which has been my fave so far. Got someone to play the guitar for me.

It has been a great time and I was wishing it was longer (and not need to go back to work). There's so much more meaning in worship songwriting. Hmm...am wondering if I should focus on Chinese songs.

Worship Songwriting with Bob Fitts - Day 1

It was the 1st day and my! I could feel the presence of the Holy Spirit, gentle as it may be.

I think this is my first time attending a songwriting class. Coincidentally, I met my guitar instructor from Believer Music there.

Today's session was more like "discovery" as we touched on 2 topics - 1) understanding the uniqueness of your gift, and 2) setting the stage to release your gift. It was interactive as we were asked to share and ask questions or give comments, even as Bob went through his points.
Before we began each session (in between breaks), we would have short worship sessions and they were really good times as we broke into new songs during the "free worship" portions. Unfortunately, I've forgotten the tunes to what I sang, but I did jot down the words. Must remember to record them tomorrow.

Anyway, today's session spoke to me and I was constantly reminded of the profoundness of simplicity. That has been my motto or how I describe myself (see my header above - complexity in simplicity, simplicity in complexity)! And also, a prophecy given to me many years ago during a church retreat came back to me. One of the prophecies released to me was a worship anointing, and it would be that 'in mine is a simplicity'. Gee...I forget these prophecies sometimes, but thank God I have reminders (and the transcript).

Tomorrow will be more of the "technical" part and will probably do some "practical", i.e. write songs on the spot. *stressed* but am looking forward to it. :)

Just a side note...Bob Fitts looks really young; he looks like in his late 30s or about 40, but he's already 55. Ok, that's beside the point. But I've always felt that those who follow God closely always seem to look younger. Even my senior pastor is like that (my friend thought he was in his 30s but he's already 58). Must be all the joy and hope that they have in Jesus.

You Can Win and Have Success

These 6 weeks are meant to be special, or rather, specially themed cellgroup sessions that are focus on overcoming life's difficulties when you have Jesus. It's our church's 40 Days of Faith movement (I happen to be the facilitator for the first few sessions). Generally, it's not just about asking your friends to share in the good news, but it's also a time for us Christians to renew our faith, and build our faith. After all, we're all humans and experience our ups and downs in various aspects of our life, and all need that boost once in a while. We can trust to be overcomers when we put our faith in God.

Well, this week's theme (3rd session) is "You Can Win and Have Success" and it basically targets our work life (or school if you're a student). But I'm sure it can apply to all areas. The 3 key points (or blessings we can experience) are that with God and faith in Jesus, there will be sufficiency, satisfaction and success in our workplace (and all areas of our lives).

I was just thinking, without a God-focused take on our work, we will lack 1 or the other. Personally, I feel it's like an equation. When there is sufficiency, there is satisfaction; with sufficiency (believing God will provide all our needs and make us fruitful), we are contented. Hence, we can be satisfied. And when these 2 add together, we are successful. All 3 'S's will only exist together when we let God lead us. And only with His provision, will we have success. For unless the LORD builds the house, its builders labor in vain (Psalm 127). So trust in the Lord in the ways He provides for our jobs. He always has plans, not to harm us but to prosper us (Jeremiah 29:11).

On a personal note, I thank God for His provision. I've shared this a couple of times, that my job/career is one of the biggest area where I've seen God's provision. It's amazing how He led me here, right now, and I'm glad I can continue to give thanks for that, even as He continue to pave the way for me, wherever it may lead. I'm assured of the sufficiency I get from Him, from the open doors to the sufficient resources, and also how He guides my way throughout, even when it baffles me initially.
And all things worked out well eventually, just like how I didn't get the transfer I applied for because it wasn't the right time (anyway, it didn't feel right at that time), and He has put me in another (totally new) area to further develop me in my work. And I'm learning a lot more about the Singapore music scene (well, the "older" generation in fact, like xinyao) as a result. Well, music is one of my passions after all.
And I'm glad I'm contented, and thus satisfied with His provision, whether it's my pay (I always can't remember how much I actually earn, exactly) or the work He's given me, and the favour shown me. So yah, I think I'm pretty successful in my workplace. Why worry so much? Of course, it doesn't mean we laze around, but we just do what He's planned for us. And doing so will reap a good reward.

I've been asked whether I will work as a librarian "forever". After all, I've been here for almost 6 years now (time flies!). Or what I would do if I stopped being one. Honestly, I've never really thought about it (ok, maybe a little bit...since people asked) and my answer would be, I really don't know. Since God led me here, my next stop will be where He wants me to go and when He wants me to go. Hopefully I'll be ready and willing then, so He doesn't need to be too hard on me.

Boeing Boeing

Caught this last week with my mum and we both enjoyed it.
It is a local adaptation of the French play and very local it was! (except for Adrian Pang's accent...and maybe Daniel York's)

It was hilarious and fast-moving, such that time flew by real fast. I was like, "it's the interval already"? I shan't go too much into the story, which was basically an architect's 3-timing relationship with 3 air stewardesses, which of course, couldn't be kept up for too long. I felt though, that the male lead seem more to be the character of Robert (Daniel York), who tries to "help" out with Bernard's (Adrian Pang) mess, and eventually gets engaged to one of the stewardesses.

My favourite stewardess would have to be Miss Cathay Pacific/Jelly (Wendy Kweh) who really gave one the Hong Kong impression especially with the Cantonese accent. And she's probably the most "woman" of the lot plus her strong character. Haha...the best part was when she remarks "qi sin", the Cantonese term for "crazy", after Robert finally manages to convince her not to enter the room where Junko (Emma Yong) was sleeping. I think Emma Yong is getting too typecast as the "sweet" thing though.

Another entertaining production by W!ld Rice.

Worship Songwriting Workshop with Bob Fitts

I'm taking 2 days off next Tue and Wed. For? A workshop on worship songwriting by none other than Bob Fitts. Am really looking forward to it.

Saw the many broadcasts about this workshop organised by CS Music. It took me a week or two to decide to sign up for it, but I was prompted that I should go in the end. And 1 of my resolutions for the year is to write more worship songs. Come to think of it, I've not written one for a long time...in fact, I've not written any songs this year at all!

I'm actually not so familiar with Bob Fitts' songs, but I've heard of him. (Or maybe I've heard them before but not know they're his?) I pray it will be a fulfilling session, not just to learn more about worship songwriting, but also taking time off to have a fruitful session seeking God with a purpose. A heart of worship.

PS: Pray that I can finish my work that's due on Monday...so coincidental, just the day before I'm taking the 2 days off. Though rushed, but I believe it's God paving the way, so that I won't be distracted by work.

Hazy scattered blur

Phew, coming into the 4th month of my new job scope, and I'm still quite blur. A lot of things seem to be "floating" around for me to do and understand, as I try to balance the various "jobs" I need to complete. So worried I'm not catching up fast enough and lag in delivering. Things are looking messy. It's really a whole new area for me and I really hope I perform well. I just realised too that my boss has yet to formally give me a "guided tour" of the department! So yah...I'm also physically "alien" to my department as I've yet to move to sit with the rest of the team.

Besides the new area, I still need to cover some of my old job scope plus clear some backlog from that past. Gee...and I don't seem to be managing it so well. Hope I can cope eventually.