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the mrbrown show on Digital Life

Our little podcast is cover story of 31 Jan 2006 edition of ST's Digital Life leh! Mr Miyagi and I are quite thrilled.

Featuring some behind the scenes material from our sessions with Sebastian Tan (Zhng 6 and his interview), Broadway Beng!

There are some candid and funny moments captured by the hardworking photog and reporter who both stayed for the whole recording. If you listen to the Sebastian Tan interview, you can even hear the photog snapping away.

If you are looking for the individual podcasts, try podcast.mrbrown.com or the podcast category on this site.

A better way of getting the show is to subscribe to the podcast feed here.
(Or click here to subscribe via iTunes)

Technorati tags: singapore, mrbrown, podcast, podcasting

At the Pink Dolphin Lagoon

In Sentosa, what Miyagi calls Singapore's Last Resort Island. We also brought Isaac and Faith to the Underwater World, where we saw a real live... 3D hologram of a Great White Shark. At least most of the other fish were real and quite fascinating.

We forgot the umbrella and the stroller, and had to trek in the sun looking for food at Tanjong Beach, which is not fully developed yet. A food court and a 7-Eleven are on the way sometime in 2006. We eventually had some expensive deep fried stuff for lunch, at some beach bar.

We went to the flower festival next, which was quite pretty.

"Free," the wife said. So we drove to the Gateway carpark and walked through the flowering bushes. Thank goodness for this free flower thing, and the complimentary tickets to the Dolphin show and Underwater World (courtesy of my cousin), or the day would have cost even more the bomb.

A very helpful butterfly-winged "angel" named Jewel helped us to take our photo against some butterfly flower sculpture. Patiently she waited while some Chinese national hogged the photo spot for every member of her family, scolding everyone who dared get in her way.

We got our rare family shot in the end. Thanks, Jewel!

1337 Star Wars

Star Wars dubbed in 1337 (Leetspeak).

My fave bit? Supreme Chancellor Palpatine telling Anakin Skywalker "I need your help, son." subtitled as "Level 50 senator LFG".

Update: Check out the Lucasfilm Cease and Desist letter sent to the makers of this video, also converted to Leetspeak, as mentioned by reader Ronny.

Chris Rock on "How to not let your ass kicked by the police"

An oldie but a goodie. (MA18: Contains vulgarity)

Spotted at Yangtze Theatre: yet another "Art" film

SMS from my youngest brother on Lunar New Year's Eve: "Passing chinatown yangtze theatre. Movie poster reads - WOMB RAIDER (like wtf!?!!)"

A review for this fine movie says: "The ever dastardly Dr. Scrotus hires world renowned treasure hunter Cara Loft (Lauren Hays) to search the world for the mysterious… ah who cares about the actual plot? What we have here is a bunch of nudity loaded, soft core lesbian scenes surrounded by a bunch of filler, and one funny joke aimed at Indiana Jones."

Looks like my brother was not the only one who saw this at Yangtze (last bastion of art house RA films for randy senior citizens) and do a double take. Tym and ampulets2 (this photo taken from ampulets2) did too.

Day 2: Lunch at 大姨's

The gang is at my mom's oldest sister's home for 初二, day 2 of the year of the Dog. There is glutinous rice (the rare Teochew sweet kind), super-sinful bak kua (the high-salt-high-fat pork belly fat kind), and Chinese sweet meats (like pieces of dried ginger, coconut strips, water chestnuts, lotus, encased in rock sugar).

Check out the old old school ceramic water dispenser at the back right, a Cheavin's with a "Saludor" Filter. It was bought by my late maternal grandfather from a pharmacy decades ago. You can see this 1800s antique at the Singapore History Museum at Riverside Point.

Between a very noisy lunch eaten in the huge kitchen and tucking into the 糖水 (filled with gingko nuts, lotus seeds and longans), we chase after Isaac to keep him from destroying the antiques and from eating too much bak kua.

Faith is busy climbing the cast iron window grills to look at the trees, plants and fish tanks in the garden.

I think I will have another bowl of 糖水.

Happy Year of the Dog!

My Papa and I would like to wish all of you Horse Arrive Work Done, Step Step High Rise, Year Year Got Fish, One Road Smooth Wind, Heart Think Work Done, Dragon Horse Sperm God and Gong Xi Fa Cai!

We had a good day today visiting and Gor Gor Isaac ate a lot of New Year junk food (I was a good girl and only drank Mommy's milk). Cheh Cheh Faith enjoyed herself too, and when we got home, she and Papa read a Wiggles book together after dinner.

We went to 爷爷奶奶's home in the morning and served them tea as a sign of respect. We all got red packets from them. My two cheh cheh cousins were there. They are very fond of me, and when they are at home, they play with a doll and pretend it's me.

Then we went to 公公婆婆's place and had steamboat for lunch. Gor kept going to the table to ask for the big people food instead of eating his own food, which made Mommy a little mad.

Mommy's going to feed me soon, and then she and Papa are going to watch Uncle Jet Li's movie, Fearless, with 二叔, 三叔 and 奶奶. Me? I'm going to sleep after my feed. Bye!

除夕!

It is time for the Reunion Dinner, and the feast looks great! All cooked by Mom, except the 烧肉 (roast pork). Then dessert of almond bean curd with longan (also homemade by her). Followed by a bottle of sweet 1995 Sauternes.

Mom's home is filled with the noise of the whole family, all 3 generations, eating together..

Daryl on Bloggies 2006

Bloggies panelist Daryl Sng reveals the politics and seedy underbelly of how the blogs for the Bloggies 2006 were nominated, and the desperate bloggers sleeping with him for votes.

Kidding lah.

Read Part 1 of his exposé.

Also, congrats go out to Simon of Simonworld and Tokyo Times for getting nominated in the Best Asian Blog category. Go read all the interesting blogs nominated.

Oh, and self-appointed Bloggies pundit Cowboy Caleb muses over the choices (jeles is liddat one, haha!).

An Orange Eve of Eve of New Year

For last minute Lunar New Year shopping, we doggedly pushed our trolley through the supermarket, stocking up on packet drinks, sweets and diapers.

And when you hate crowds as much as we do, the supermarket with the widest aisles wins our business.

browncast: Sebastian Tan guests

Sebastian Tan is back from the UK after being on Miss Saigon, and he is our guest for this show. He tells us about his upcoming show, Broadway Beng, running from from 2nd to 7th Feb 2006, and we also make fun of Mr Miyagi's dragon tattoo. Here is a pic of me using our new kit.

Audio file for the mrbrown show 27 Jan 2006: Sebastian Tan guests
(MP3, Filesize: 9.8mb, Time: 00:21:16)

Subscribe to the podcast feed here.
(Or click here to subscribe via iTunes)

Technorati tags: singapore, mrbrown, podcast, podcasting

TODAY: Why we do not have chatek as a core sport

Latest TODAY column: Why we do not have chatek as a core sport.

Excerpt:

IS the microphone on? (Tap, tap) Oh dear, that is a very loud noise. Ahem. Right, dear elite students of Wee Mas Ween Institution, this is your principal speaking.

I would like to address some recent requests to allow you, the cream of Singapore's crop, to start playing the sport of chatek competitively. For those of you who do not know what chatek is, it is a sport played with a chatek, a piece of rubber with feathers nailed into it.

I am afraid that I have to say no, because chatek is not a core sport, unlike rugby and swimming.

P.S. I know it is actually called "chapteh" "capteh" but you know lah, Singlish is liddat one, many of us grew up calling it "chatek".

I SAID, Enter when barrier is LIFTED!

Seen at Funan carpark.

the mrbrown show: our podcast studio v4

Our humble new podcast studio, with new kit.

From left: Behringer Eurorack UB802 Mixer, M-Audio Mobilepre USB (USB Bus-Powered Preamp and Audio Interface), Audio Technica AT-897 Shotgun condenser microphone, iPod 40Gb Clickwheel with Griffin iTalk and lapel mic, Sennheiser HD 280 Pro studio monitor headphones, Apple Powerbook G4, M-Audio Nova studio condenser microphone with Stedman Proscreen 101 pop filter, and Shure SM-58 dynamic microphone.

You may wish to listen to a podcast discussing it. Not a regular mrbrown show, but a sound test and audio tour of the mrbrown show podcast studio. Only listen if you are interested in our podcast gear. Though there is a fun little recording I included at the end of the show.

I have NOT included this in the regular mrbrown show feed, but you can still listen to it by clicking directly on the mp3 below.

Audio file for the mrbrown show: our podcast studio
(MP3, Filesize: 4.1mb, Time: 00:08:44)

Subscribe to the podcast feed here.

(Or click here to subscribe via iTunes)

Technorati tags: singapore, mrbrown, podcast, podcasting

browncast: zhng my car 6

Welcome to Zhng My Car 6, guest starring musical theatre star, Sebastian Tan, of the musical Broadway Beng (showing from 2nd to 7th Feb 2006, get your tickets NOW)!

Back from a highly successful run of Miss Saigon (UK), Sebastian Tan "Ah Piew" seeks Johnny's help to zhng his car with Karaoke! Special appearance by Johnny's estranged brudder, Ah Hur.

Audio file for the mrbrown show 25 Jan 2006: zhng my car 6
(MP3, Filesize: 9.6mb, Time: 00:20:46)

Subscribe to the podcast feed here.
(Or click here to subscribe via iTunes)

Technorati tags: singapore, mrbrown, podcast, podcasting

Flowers for De Wedding

An online wedding florist with a most appropriate URL... deflowerhouse.com. Nuff said.

(Found by Yewjin, what were you doing there, dude? Heheh.)

Other funny domain names:

Italian power company, Powergen: www.powergenitalia.com

Mole Station Native Nursery, based in New South Wales: www.molestationnursery.com

Pen Island, online pen company: www.penisland.net ("Don't be fooled by those imposters at www.penisland.org, or www.pen-island.net, we're the real deal!")

Choose Spain, online Spanish Holiday Rentals: www.choosespain.com

Experts Exchange: www.expertsexchange.com

Cumming First United Methodist Church: www.cummingfirst.com/organ.html

Paul Graham on Blogging and Open Source

This podcast of a presentation by Paul Graham showed up in my iTunes del.icio.us feed subscription (iTunes podcast feature + del.icio.us feeds= Very cool stuff) and I curiously clicked Play to listen to it, only to continue listening to the whole darn thing, all 32 minutes 45 seconds of it.

Paul Graham is a popular author (Hackers and Painters) and Lisp programmer, and in this OSCON 2005 presentation, he discusses what business can learn from open source. He uses blogging as an analogy for open source, and explains why "amateurs" very often do a much better job than "professionals".

Go to the ITConversations page to listen to the MP3 audio of his speech.

You can also read an essay he wrote based on this talk.

Yeah, I know he made the speech in August 2005 and I am a little late getting this, but hey, time-shifting is like that.

Excerpt:

On the Web, the barrier for publishing your ideas is even lower. You don't have to buy a drink, and they even let kids in. Millions of people are publishing online, and the average level of what they're writing, as you might expect, is not very good. This has led some in the media to conclude that blogs don't present much of a threat — that blogs are just a fad.

Actually, the fad is the word "blog," at least the way the print media now use it. What they mean by "blogger" is not someone who publishes in a weblog format, but anyone who publishes online. That's going to become a problem as the Web becomes the default medium for publication. So I'd like to suggest an alternative word for someone who publishes online. How about "writer?"

Fun with Japanese Subtitles

Go to foshata! to do your own subtitles for Japanese commercials. Hilarious fun.

Mine is FSH2644 and my three lines were:

"I wonder why the train is not here yet."

"If Buangkok MRT could be opened, why not Woodleigh?"

"Open Woodleigh MRT too, you wankers."

via asiapundit

Chinese New Year anime fest

CNY long weekend coming, so must stock up on good stuff to watch. Or else will be forced to watch holiday ice skating or circus shows on TV.

From left, Fullmetal Alchemist, Ghost in a Shell: Standalone Complex 2nd Gig, and Samurai 7.

Also spotted on sale, Kevin Smith's Clerks, and only $12.90 for the original and uncut version DVD. The store was sold out but their other store still had some, so they will call me when the DVD arrives.

I love the recent spate of $12.90 original imports, except for the occasional default Chinese-dubbed dialogue which you had to manually switch back to English. My $12.90 original The Island DVD was like this, and Ewan McGregor speaking in Mandarin was just odd. But a small inconvenience for a great bargain.

Oh, and the relaxation of censorship is cool too, and we are getting a lot of DVD titles brought in uncut with MA18 and R21 ratings. Even titles that show, gasp, boobies. Who knows, they may even allow Dogma and Zoolander into Singapore one day.

TODAY: Be a world-beating Singaporean

Latest TODAY column: Be a world-beating Singaporean.

Excerpt:

I WISH to congratulate our President for the adjustment to his salary to $2,507,200, an increase from the last adjustment in February last year.

I really feel Mr President deserved it. And it is also a good sign for all Singaporeans because it was done in view of "higher projected bonuses", which is the case because the economy has performed better than expected.

I am sure many Singaporeans are looking forward to adjustments to their salaries too.