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Ok, I know the 20th April podcast is late. This week uncle very the busy, ok? Sorry lah.
More Mr Tan, Mr Miyagi and me, I am so going to get in trouble with our JB listeners. Please don't angry, ok? We kidding only.
Audio file for the mrbrown show 20 April 2005
(MP3, Filesize: 4.3mb, Time: 00:24:26)
Subscribe to the podcast feed here.
Technorati tags: singapore, mrbrown, podcast, podcasting
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It was a good meet and much was done. In what seemed like a week of meetups (first with the Malaysian bloggers and now this), a bunch of us Singapore bloggers (or as Miyagi put it, the Singapore Blog Mafia) gathered to discuss the upcoming blogger conference and the launch of tomorrow.sg.
One of the perks of meeting up like this, besides the great company, is that we get to take really great photos of the event. Like Xiaxue and Adri, the First Ladies of Singapore blogging, gamely posing with the First Ah Peks of Singapore blogging, brown and Miyagi.
Present at the meeting were Calm One, La Idler (pictured here with the "Shy" One), Daryl (pictured here with Calm One), James, Xiaxue, Adri (Ayi-dree, not Ah-dree, ok?), Miyagi and me. Preetam came later after work.
Secret Agent Man, Cowboy Caleb chickened out was absent with apologies, because revealing himself would jeopardise world peace. So he will remain an Undercover Editor.
In order to protect Calm One and Idler, who were also on the Witness Protection Program, my photos of them have been marked private.
James started the ball rolling by sharing his toys, like that little PDA of his that runs Linux and shows 天龙八步 天龙八部 videos. Then he whipped out his 12-incher and placed it on the table (ok, that sounded wrong), and soon, the rest of them had to take out their Apple laptops too, like Calm One and his white 14-incher, and Adri with her 12-inch Powerbook.
Miyagi took out his notebook too, the advanced-no-need-battery model with LINES. Yes, paper one.
iPods, mobile phones and PDAs were soon whipped out by the Jedi Council, and shown around. It was like a technology face-off.
In order not to lose out, I took out my iPod with iTalk and lapel mic attached, in the hope of getting some nice material for my podcasts.
It was a little too noisy in NYDC, Holland Vilage (The Manufactured "Bohemia" of Singapore) because of the crowd and the music blaring from the sound system, but I did get some nuggets of choice conversation. We got the staff to turn down the volume of the music twice, because of the loudness, and also because the koo-koo CD player occasionally went too fast, and turned the CD into the Chipmunks Greatest Hits.
Miyagi came from work, which meant that he was in his sweaty PE attire, and he rushed to change his tee when he arrived. That was okay, except that he attempted to smell nice too, by spraying a lethal amount of cologne. We also died from the fumes and the restuarant almost called HAZMAT.
And as a demonstration of how small Singapore is, Miyagi met Finicky Feline outside the restaurant when he was, er, getting some fresh air (must not encourage the kiddies to engage in activities bad for the lungs).
We worked out the details of the upcoming conference, and then moved on to talk about tomorrow.sg. Yes, ladies and gents, there is now a place online for you to read about Singapore-related stuff, be it blog posts, Singapore news, or foreign sites talking about Singapore.
How is that possible? Well, simple. YOU are going to provide the links to that content. You see, tomorrow.sg allows anyone to suggest a site or link. Your submissions will be fed into a queue and the editors of the site will approve the submissions based on strict editorial guidelines (like, we think the link is cool).
We realised early on that one person cannot do it all, and having all of you readers and bloggers involved in suggesting content to one site would be more powerful than just one of us bloggers going it alone. All we needed was a good infrastructure to build it upon (James provided this with Drupal, bless his high-tech soul), and some volunteers to be editors to select and publish the content.
Think of this as a Boing Boing for Singapore, but (hopefully) bigger and better.
Now it ain't very pretty yet, and kinks will be worked out as we go along, but I think the site is pretty cool as it stands. So go forth and suggest away.
Of course, no blogger meeting is complete without some silliness. And Miyagi and I provided some. Like trying to be Mediacorpse star, Tay Ping Hui, he with the Creased Forehead of Angst.
I think my attempt was the best, and if they ever need any stunt double for his shows, they can look me up. As long as it doesn't involve me showing my abs (last seen wondering near Nee Soon camp, in 1988).
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Joi has uploaded his bunch of photos of the KL dinner (my Flickr set is here), and even made a little comic using the software Comic Life. He also reveals the roots of of my nickname.
Moo...
P.S. And check out these shots of the exciting conversations (like here and here) that took place. Er, dialogue was made up imagineered for dramatic effect.)
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Mr Tan, Mr Miyagi and I take on the important issues in life — slimming centres.
Audio file for the mrbrown show 19 April 2005
(MP3, Filesize: 2.9mb, Time: 00:16:39)
Subscribe to the podcast feed here.
Technorati tags: singapore, mrbrown, podcast, podcasting
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Not say I want to say, but my marder predicted correctly that there were going to be TWO casinos, not just one.
In her own words (kinda), "You think the Gahmen ask those 19 proposers to propose and they only looking for ONE casino? Of course not!"
So a bonus for those who were lobbying against a casino. You won! The Gahmen not building a casino, it is building TWO!
Anyway, we should cease this "casino this and casino that". Singapore is not building casino, ok? Singapore is building IR, Integrated Resorts. Please keep using the term IR, so that you will feel better.
Let's try replacing "a casino" with "an integrated resort" in our daily conversations:
"Because an integrated resort comes with all the known evils of gambling, this road to perdition must never be opened in Singapore."
"An integrated resort will only bring ruin and bad memories of Singapore to these tourists and their loved ones."
See? Isn't that better?
And Straits Times say, Singaporeans against the casinos integrated resorts should stop whining anyway.
Eh, look. You lost liao, ok? You lobbied, and you lost. There is a thin line between Crusader for Morals and being Whiny Losers. If you had swayed the Gahmen to not go ahead with the casinos integrated resorts, then people and mainstream newspapers will not call you whiners lor. From now on, anyone else who expresses an anti-integrated-resort opinion will have to wear a "I am a Whiner" t-shirt for one week, ok?
Besides, you all should grow up, like the journalist said. Singaporeans should be mature enough to deal with casinos integrated resorts in Singapore, which is why the following measures are in place:
-Casino entrance fee for Singapore citizens and PRs: $100 a day and $2,000 a year. Money collected to go to Singapore Totalisator Board for charitable causes
-Spouses and family members can ask that people with gambling problem be denied entry
-Bankrupts, people on public assistance and those with poor credit records will be excluded
-Locals cannot use credit cards or post-dated cheques or get credit from casinos
Only a mature society would have all these measures to help them to remain mature.
Besides, Gahmen say we are mature enough to have a casino. They never say we are mature enough to go into one.
So let's rally and make Singapore the best casino country integrated resort country in the region! We may not be able to get in (without a hefty fee), but we must support the foreigners who can! Viva Las Singapore!
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Now I know why people would rather pay the RM110 to take an excellent Aeroline bus to KL (fastest I have ever reached KL by bus - 4 hours), rather than fly one of those budget airlines for half the price.
James and I are back, and back at work. We had a blast chatting with Joi, Jeff, Mack "Mr Evo", KaZ, Alex Lam, and the many bloggers (and also blog readers) who were at the Al-Marjan (Arabian and Persian) restaurant, KLCC. Special shoutouts go to Kenneth, who brought James and I out for lunch. You were most kind and thanks for helping me with taking the photos.
I will upload the photos and further details when I have the time (work, work, and podcast post-production await). Oh, Cowboy Caleb? I just couldn't bring myself to tell Jeff Ooi that you admire his manberries, so you'll have to do it yourself the next time.
When I mentioned to Andreas of AlwaysWow that we were flying out of KL in the morning via AirAsia, he laughed and said, bring a book. So I guess I was lucky that my flight to Senai Airport, JB, was only delayed by half an hour.
Mom picked James and I up from Senai, and she picked up cans of baby formula, toilet rolls and diapers from a provision shop in JB, before I drove everyone home. Mom knows how to maximise the use of my car when I leave it with her, man. She is the Queen of Wet Marketing and Supermarketing in JB.
Psst, JB... want to attract Singapore travellers to fly out of Senai? Build a really secure and safe long-term car park and watch the Singaporean crowds drive in and fly Senai. I am not being sarcastic, I mean it.
I am really looking forward to meeting our new friends in Malaysia again (a few pictured here). It was a blast and worth the trip up. But I am taking the Aeroline bus both ways next time.
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It's a lazy Sunday afternoon, and we do not go out because the wife is resting. We are watching TV together, and Faith is playing with a Wiggles DVD cover.
She likes spinning the DVD in the box with her finger, and pulling out the DVD paper cover. The spinning is a sensory thing her autistic mind enjoys. Her brother, Isaac, also has his own DVD cover to play with (Disney's Fantasia, which Mommy bought for $5 at Bugis, allegedly original).
Soon, my 18-month-old sees the DVD cover that 姐姐 is playing with, and of course, it looks much nicer to play with.
So he crawls/ambles to her spot on the sofa, and she is still playing, oblivious to the the darkening shadow of her little brother.
Because of her condition and her lack of speech, Faith hardly interacts with her brother. In fact, if it wasn't for some recent incidents, we did not really know if she acknowledged his presence. We think sometimes that she merely tolerates his presence in her world, and does not know what to make of him.
I watch as Isaac approach his sister, knowing that chances are, Isaac will get away with yanking his sister's toy, because Faith never fights back.
Then, as he reaches out to grab her "toy". I saw the most amazing thing. Faith got mad, and pulled her DVD back from him, while giving Isaac an angry ""ehhhhhhhhhrrrrrrrrr!".
Taken back by his sister's surprising response, my Isaac stands there, his feelings hurt. He puts his hand to his eye, and looks postively sad. And I think he stood there, waiting for some sympathy from her.
After a long pause, I could not bear to watch his hurt look and went over, laughing, and gave him a big hug, saying, "Come, sayang. Next time don't grab your sister's things like that, ok?'
I turn to Faith, with a poorly hidden tone of pride in my voice, and say,"Faith, cannot do that. Must share with 弟弟, ok?"
I don't know if she understood what I said. But my daughter made eye contact with her brother, and told him off. And stood up for herself.
What a beautiful lazy Sunday afternoon.
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More fun and laughter with a third member, the mysterious Mr Tan. With Miyagi and me, the three of us flip through the papers to find news about NKF stunts, Jolin Tsai, and Denise Keller.
Audio file for the mrbrown show 18 April 2005
(MP3, Filesize: 2.7mb, Time: 00:15:28)
Subscribe to the podcast feed here.
Technorati tags: singapore, mrbrown, podcast, podcasting
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James and I are now on the high-end bus to KL. Stylo, right? Macam flight liddat. Got lounge, got food, got toilet.
I almost left for KL without my phone (left it in the car and my mom drove off) but I managed to run to a payphone and call my mom who circled back. I got a earful for that, but at least I got my phone.
Incidentally, one of my readers wrote in to express her disappointment at my "politically incorrect" jokes in the previous post. I would like to point out that it was in reference to the recent media reports that we Singaporeans get on JB crime (like the bungled Rollex kopitiam robbery where the robber got beat up) and our kiasi tendency to believe everything we read about how dangerous JB is.
In fact, we shop in JB very often. My mother drives in to grocery shop and to do her marketing at least twice a month. And I even went with the wife and Isaac not long ago (I have photographs of our little JB trip I meant to post but got lazy).
If I thought those things about JB, I wouldn't be there so often, would I? But if anyone is offended, I apologise.
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Reading my favourite Malaysian crusader's blog one day, I spied an entry that said, Joi Ito to visit KL. Being the groupie that I am, and always looking for the slightest excuse for a road trip, I fired off an email to buddy James Seng who knows Joi, and told him we should gatecrash drop by the dinner in KL too.
I mean, gotta re-pre-sent, y'know? Strengthening bilateral relations between Singapore and KL, and in the spirit of good relations and all that. Some more got buffet.
So it is with this noble mission that James and I are setting forth to the great Northern lands, at great personal risk to ourselves (leave not yet approved).
There should be some Live moblogging while we're there (provided I get a GPRS signal), and I should be able to take many photos with both the phone and camera. And maybe even get Joi to say a few words (or more) for a podcast recording. Don't worry, I brought the trusty iPod, iTalk and Lapel Mic along. Heck, I even brought the MicFlex and Powerbook too, just in case. Yes, I am a walking Sim Lim Square.
I don't think I will be a target for crime. I left the (fake) Rollex at home and I am not driving up (besides, my car no self-respecting car-jacker wants). Also, we are not stopping in JB.
See? Haven't go up to people's country already say this kind of politically incorrect things. Like that how to be unofficial Singapore ambassador? Better find and wear my "I [heart] Malaysia: Truly Asia" t-shirt.
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Roxanne wants Mediacorpse to die for killing off her favourite gangster in the very long NKF commercial NKF-sponsored drama series, A Life of Hope.
Aside from perpetuating the myth that mental patients are all psycho killers, there are also other morals from the series.
Excerpt:
The Moral Of The NKF Drama
Pai-kia cannot go sell roti prata.
3 beer bottles can kill a big tough gangster.
Don't wake up after 7 years in coma
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The price is right and it comes with a nice shoulder massage too. Gotta love the retro-glam neighbourhood hair salon.
I told her I wanted the Beckham look. Riiiiight.
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You know that you are a certain age when you start having beers at a Beer Garden at East Coast Lagoon Food Centre, and not at a club.
Cheap food, cheap beers, no muggers... Singapore life very good what.
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My 30 seconds (or less) of fame, as I get interviewed by Sharanjit Leyl of the BBC. I was being asked my expert opinion on the casino decision, because of my deep knowledge of the gambling industry (haha).
I think it is going to be seen on BBC's Asia Today on Saturday, 16th April 2005 (06:45am, 09:30am, 10:30am, 11:30am sometime today).
Being the consummate professional TV opinion-giver that I am, I forgot to turn off my mobile phone, and my SMS beep went off when I said one of my best lines. Then I promptly forgot what I said, when I had to say my lines again for the re-recording. Sian 1/2.
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Mommy rested at home while Faith, Isaac and Papa went down to the playground to get out of her hair. In the void deck behind us, an old man played his Chinese opera tunes on his radio.
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Cowboy Caleb tells us about his Magic Hour podcast plans, and we investigate the correct grammatical way to use the Cowboy-inspired term, "manberries".
Audio file for the mrbrown show 15 April 2005
(MP3, Filesize: 3mb, Time: 00:17:20)
Subscribe to the podcast feed here.
Technorati tags: singapore, mrbrown, podcast, podcasting
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Latest TODAY column: Run first, blog later
Excerpt:
Singapore has been receiving its share of tremors lately from the earthquakes nearby.
While earthquakes are serious events and should not be a source of humour, like many things in Singapore (race, religion and Government policies), some Singaporean reactions to the tremors can be bizarre.
Who can forget the brave soul who was typing in a local Internet forum: "My block is shaking!!!!!!!"?
What are you doing typing this on your computer, while your flat is shaking from unknown tremors?
Shouldn't you grab your precious belongings like your "Ready Bag" (the one that Singaporeans are supposed to pack, but no one does), your Louis Vuitton shoes and your Xbox — and just run for it?
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10.37pm. The fish tank is dark when I get in. I remind myself to buy the replacement light. It is so early and everyone is asleep...
Work was... work. I decided to have lunch alone today, and then it was back to it. I spent most of the day sitting in the soft area, at the table next to the window, working wirelessly away from the bustle of my desk. Mom calls to tell me Faith is down with a fever, and that she had no choice but to take her to the grouchy and rude doctor at London clinic, because our family one was not open at five in the afternoon.
6.23pm. Ginny sms-es me, and asks if I am picking her up. She was really ill today, so I take the remaining work home. On the way to her office, the BBC lady calls, and we make an appointment to meet the next day.
7.39pm. As we pull into the car park at Mom's block, Celia calls to tell Ginny that she is taking Faith home from Mom's early, instead of waiting for us to finish dinner. I tell the missus over dinner to go home first, and I will wash up and take Isaac home. She does not eat much, the sight of food is not appealing in her current state. I give her the car keys, ask her if she is any state to drive it back to our part of the car park, two blocks away, since I need to push Isaac home in his stroller. She says she can.
9.02pm. Isaac is in a chatty mode when I load him into the stroller after washing the dishes.
He greeted his mother earlier with great enthusiasm and a comical run down the hall when he saw her, his face locked in a silly grin and his run like a penguin's. Mommy gave him a weak smile before having dinner. After Mommy goes home, we spend the whole evening, my parents and I, telling him not to go so near the TV, and not to play with the fan.
As I push his stroller through the car park, he talks to me about his day. All I hear is "Pa, babble babble, Pa, babble." But I nod and reply anyway. He is a funny little guy. There are no ramps connecting my block and Mom's so I have to push along the car park road.
Celia takes over the stroller and the task of changing Isaac for his milk and bedtime, and I holler to the wife in the bedroom that I was going to go down and get my bag from the car, get some petrol and maybe wash it too.
9.32PM. The petrol warning light blinks in reproach. And I pull into the station to fill the empty tank up. I cannot wait till the morning to fill up, or the morning traffic will stop me cold, and this is my only window in the day (or night, as it were) to run car errands.
The 24-hour car wash guys at the station are working on some cabs. I drive my car over to the rinsing station after I am done with petrol, and let them cover my car with soapy water. I turn on my mobile phone's MSN to chat with Ben a bit.
As I watch the team of workers dry my car and vacuum it, I am struck by how thorough they are. Some look local, some are Indian nationals. They are not like that other place I used to go to, with the grouchy and sloppy PRC washers. No, these guys took pride in their work and they cleaned every corner and surface of my car. I am glad to have bought the coupon package which gave me two free washes and a $1 off the vacuuming. Good service must support.
I drive home listening to one of my raw unedited podcasts. I groan internally at the thought of editing for next week's shows.
I am thankful that Mom was around to take Faith to the doctor's. This flu business is certainly spreading around. Strangely, Isaac has been mostly fine in his 18 months, beyond a few sniffles. Faith, on the other hand, has stayed in the hospital for more than three times already. I know the floor of the B2 ward at KK's very well. But then, these happened in the first year of her life, and her recent years have been relatively illness free. Breast milk rules.
10.37pm. The fish tank is dark when I get in. I remind myself to buy the replacement light. It is so early and everyone is asleep. I can hear Faith's gentle snoring, and the wife stirs next to her.
Maybe I will have some time to write, and if Ben is free, we can have a coffee later.
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