mrbrown.com

One of the joys of going up to KL

Ramly burgers. Yeah. Best. Will blog more when I get to the capital.

browncast: jedi elections special

A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away... a young republic was having their elections, and the ruling party decided to have a dialogue with the disenfranchised youth.

A fanfic parody by mr brown and Mr Miyagi.

This audio podcast does not contain "explicit political content" because that is prohibited during the election period under the Singapore's Election Advertising Regulations. We are just inspired by the recent election events, like the dialogue MM Lee Kuan Yew had with 10 young people on TV (read opinions here and here, read a CNA report here, and watch video here). Yes, I know, we have overly active imaginations and way too much free time. Results of our misspent youth, I'm sure.

Audio file for the mrbrown show 20 April 2006: jedi elections special
(MP3, Filesize: 4.1mb, Time: 00:08:07)

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

Technorati tags: singapore, mrbrown, podcast, podcasting

This handicapped lot is reserved

Rambling Alcoholic spotted this disabled parking lot at his office, protected with a chain.

No lah, it is not to make it harder for the disabled to use the lot. It is a feature! To help the disable get out of their vehicles! You see that chain? The disabled can use that for support mah!

Ranks up there with handicapped toilets which are locked and you have to get the key from reception to use it.

via Tomorrow.sg

Crazy traffic and pedestrians in India on Youtube

I never wanna drive here, or even cross the street.

Watch for the white car from the top right. That guy champion.

(If you cannot view it here, click on this text link to video.)

the mrbrown show: our podcast studio's new M-Audio Microtrack

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. In this podcast, I put our new M-Audio Microtrack portable recorder through a series of mic tests. There are some reviews here and here.

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's new M-Audio Microtrack
(MP3, Filesize: 6.1mb, Time: 00:12:06)

Subscribe to the podcast feed here.

(Or click here to subscribe via iTunes)

Technorati tags: singapore, mrbrown, podcast, podcasting

Do NOT enter your email passwords into PlayBingoLive!

Please hor! Do not respond to emails asking you for your email addresses and PASSWORDS! I have been getting a lot of these emails from compromised email accounts out there.

There has been a recent one going around where the email subject says "Check it out", and in the email body, it says "Sign up so we can play". Some people actually clicked on the link in the email, and worse, filled in the blanks with their email addresses and PASSWORDS!!!

When you do that, the spammer has access to your email account, and proceeds to email EVERYONE in your address book with the same spam email.

Mr Miyagi did it, and all his Gmail contacts kena (he has since changed his password), both my email accounts kena from his one mistake. Fortunately, I ignored the emails.

I know of at least one person who not only entered her password into the page, she stayed around and PLAYED BINGO for a while, wondering why nothing happened! In fact, she played for a long time, and wondered why Mr Miyagi did not come online to play Bingo with her.

Then again, this is the same girl who, many years ago, upon receiving an email encoded with an autoplaying sound file of Mr Miyagi saying "Hello? Hello? Can you hear me?", actually leaned forward and talked back to her computer.

Kua kua..

This is just a current version of this scam. The next ones may have a different message. But the bottomline is to be totally skeptical of sites that ask for your email address passwords. NEVER give those out especially from unsolicited emails.

And don't even get me started on the ebay and paypal phishers.

Titanic 2 spoof trailer on Youtube

Brilliantly done. Jack's back.

(If you cannot view it here, click on this text link to video.)

My two-year-old boy sings Golden Oldies

Yesterday, in the car, Isaac suddenly breaks into song.

Nana Nana Na Naa
Nana Nana Na Naa
Nana Nana Na Na Na Naa
Nana Nana Na Naa
Nana Nana Na Naa
Nana Nana Na Na Na Naa

It sounded familiar, until we realised he was singing Engelbert Humperdinck's "A Man Without Love".

New White Tigers at the Zoo

Faith enjoyed pressing the buttons that played tiger growls and roars. The wife and I were just glad to see the tiger enclosure because this meant we were close to the entrance.

Lesson of today, take a stroller along. Isaac kept pointing at every tram driving past us, and saying, "sit down sit down!"

Easy for him to say, we were carrying him a quarter of the time. At least the kids will be tired enough for their afternoon nap.

Yay to the elephants at the Zoo

Isaac gives the hardworking elephants a hand for their fine performance. Faith enjoyed it too. The Zoo was not as crowded today because most Singaporeans, I think, were overseas for the long holiday weekend.

Isaac got a scraped knee and Faith kept licking the glass wall of the aircon shelter, but other than that, we had a fuss free morning.

TODAY: "Papa ... byebyeseeyou"

Latest TODAY column: "Papa ... byebyeseeyou"

Excerpt:

Recently, Today Day Editor S Murali wrote about the struggles he has juggling work and spending time with his young children. We know the feeling too.

Every morning, when the wife and I leave for work, we leave a piece of ourselves behind. We look back longingly at our garishly painted front gate (done up with leftover orange paint), while waiting at the new upgraded lift in front of our flat.

Sometimes Isaac, who is two, is at the door, crying his guts out. Faith, who is five and autistic, is usually quieter, but even she has moments when she runs out the door wailing, obviously wanting to come along with us. Joy is too young to stand at the gate and cry, but I am sure she misses us from her cot too.

I love old-school neighbourhood hardware stores

They always have such interesting knick knacks. Like old style soy sauce dispensers and assorted earthenware. I wonder whether they will still be around when my kids are grown up.

In Singapore, dreams do come true

The wife and I had the privilege of watching the film 美满人生 Singapore Dreaming (see also the film's blog) at its special gala world premiere at Lido One last night. Written and directed by our schoolmate Colin Goh and his partner (in life and film) Woo Yen Yen, and produced by Woffles Wu, it is one solid movie about Singapore, about families, and about life in our little island.

Miyagi and I had lunch with Colin last week at Katong, and it was fun catching up and talking cock. When we last met almost a year ago, he was in the midst of shooting, and we chatted about the movie too. I recall him telling us about the challenges he faced in getting the film done. So we were very thrilled to be catching up again over wanton mee, and finding out that the movie was going to be having its premiere in a few days time.

I can tell you right now, when it starts screening commercially, go and watch it.

Before the film began, Executive Producer Woffles Wu gave a short speech, and the wife turned to me and whispered, "Isn't he that famous plastic surgeon?"

"Yes," I said, "that's him."

"So he must know a lot of celebrities here tonight then," she said, alluding to the many femes people spotted at the event.

So witty, the wife.

You will find much in the film that resonates. Particularly outstanding was the performance by Yeo Yann Yann, who plays Mei, the daughter. The other thing that made my wife and I smile was the car driven by Lim Yu Beng, who plays CK, Mei's ex-army-regular husband, because we had the same car when we were but a pair of newly-weds. His Suzuki Wagon R was even in the same dark green colour. The only difference was that my Wagon was zhnged with sports rims and other er, enhancements. Man, I missed my little three-door 600cc runabout.

Also, to my delight, the whole film was subtitled in English, partly because a lot of the dialogue was in Hokkien, but also because the English spoken was mostly Singlish. This kind of subtitle thing sure must have one. Wait the ang mohs catch no ball, mah.

After the film credits started rolling (with a minor hiccup with the sound, and also some wacky PA system behaviour), the audience broke into spontaneous applause. The lights went up, Miyagi and I looked at each other and Miyagi did a thumbs-up. I nodded, "Good ah?"

We left our womenfolk for a while to squeeze our way to the front so that we could convey our congratulations.

Colin looked at me and smiled cheekily, "Can or not?"

I said, "Can lah." And we laughed.

Understatement of the year, man. More than "can". Very the "can".

Well done, dude, and congratulations.

the mrbrown show is a Popular Odeo!

Zhng My Car from the mrbrown show is mentioned by rabble, Odeo's lead developer (photo of him here), on the Odeo Blog, as one of the most popular odeos.

Thanks for the shoutout, rabble!

Saladin, the animated series

Hot on the heels of Singapore's first 3D animated film, Zodiac, the Race Begins, which screened during Chinese New Year, comes a 3D animated series from Malaysia, called Saladin, based on the life of Salah al-Din Yusuf bin Ayyub. Saladin was one of Islam’s most legendary figures, who united and led Muslim factions in the past.

Funded with a couple million bucks of financial support from the Media Development Authority, Singapore's Zodiac received less-than-stellar reviews, and having seen it at the DVD stores, I am not exactly surprised. But then I read that besides us, some lucky folk from China, Thailand and Eastern Europe will also get to see enjoy it, because Zodiac has been sold to these countries wor.

If you go over to the Saladin site and watch the rather generously long trailer (6 whole minutes!) for the Malaysian series, you cannot help but feel that Malaysia's Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) is putting its funding in the right places (more news coverage here and here).

From the trailer, this looks like a series that will rock. Creatively, I have some problems with it, like why does Saladin look like something out of Disney or Dreamworks (kind of a Prince-of-Egypt white-guy version of the man, I feel)? And why does he have to speak English with an "Arabic" accent? I mean, Chinese characters in English cartoons don't speak with a "Chinese" accent, so why should this renowned 12th century Kurdish Muslim warrior speak with that "Middle-Eastern" accent?

My creative misgivings aside, the technical work of this animated series is stunning. Fire and water are rendered with CGI beautifully. Wood flies across the screen as ship meets floating fire bombs. You can feel the weight of the Crusaders' armour pulling them down into the waters as their ships sink from the explosions. It made me mutter, "Wah lau eh, Malaysia really BOLEH, man!"

I wonder, why we can't produce work of this calibre? Is it for the lack of talent? I don't think so, because I have seen some stunning 3D animation work by a local dude done for his polytechnic's final year project. I kid you not. And if I have a chance to, one day I will share it his video clip with you.

Meanwhile, I cannot wait to see the 13-parter series from our northern neighbours. Go Malaysia!

browncast: pam oei guests

The irrepressible Pam Oei is our guest this week, and we find out about her upcoming one-woman show, PAMdemonium!, and other dodgy guitar skills. Pam played Windy Chan and her maid in last week's Zhng My Car episode (Part 8) and totally brought the house down.

PAMdemonium! is on 28 & 29 Apr 2006 (Fri & Sat), at the Esplanade Recital Studio. And tickets are at $25 via Sistic. The shows were sold out really really early, so they added another two shows, 7.30pm for both nights.

Audio file for the mrbrown show 11 April 2006: pam oei guests
(MP3, Filesize: 11.7mb, Time: 00:23:10)

Subscribe to the podcast feed here.
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Technorati tags: singapore, mrbrown, podcast, podcasting

The Singapore Sci-fi Movie you never saw

So we were surfin' around, looking for DVDs to buy, when we came across this title, Cyber Wars, coming out on April 11.

Wah, looks so CYBER (even got the name Cyber in its title), so we watched the trailer loh. Wait! Was that Singaporean actor Lim Kay Siu? Singapore got Sci-fi movie meh?

Well, apparently yes. Seems that Cyber Wars is actually a reworked version of movie named Avatar (IMDB link) which was made in Singapore.

Here is a review (check out the Pokemon badge prop used here) and blog mention of Avatar. Strappingyounglad, the blogger, says "I cant wait to see Avatar... so i can go jam a pencil in my ear and dig out my eyes..."

Can't be that bad, right?

I mean, they have characters with stylo names like heroine bounty hunter, Dash MacKenzie (see the Japan-market Trinity-like poster here), a Cyberpriest, and Goggles Man (NOT related to VR Man, much missed TCS sci-fi TV series).

A friend told me when he watched the movie way back then (he was given free tickets), he noticed that when the actor closed the door of the "sci-fi vehicle", the prop car shook.

Ok, so it was a stinker then. But hey, got Joan Chen half nekkid what. Surely that counts for something.

Engrish menu

Funny until stomach pain. Taken from a real Chinese real menu.

I would like to have an order of Cowboy Leg Beautiful Pole please. Though that plate of Strange Flavor of Inside Freasuse looks tempting too.

More menu fun here.

Sent to me by friend, Sita.

TODAY: Half bridge over troubled waters

Latest TODAY column: Half bridge over troubled waters

Excerpt:

I HEAR that talks are still underway between Singapore and Malaysia regarding the building of a new bridge to replace the Causeway.

In fact, if Malaysia proceeds and Singapore does not, the impression out there is that we may have either an incomplete bridge or one that is crooked.

Singaporeans are rightly concerned about it because here, we like things straight.

Half a bridge is enough to make any country sian jit pua (literally "bored by half" — Hokkien for very dissatisfied).

browncast: The WTF! Show preview 5 (video) - Switch ft mrbrown

This is the second video we made to make up for missing Day 4 of Videoblogging Week 2006.

"Alan Wong" lives in an estate that has everything upgraded. Yet he wants to "switch". Best seen together with the other clip, featuring Miyagi.

Once again, we would like to stress that this video podcast does not stream "explicit political content" because that is prohibited during the election period under the Singapore's Election Advertising Regulations.

We wouldn't want that, because prison got no broadband.

Nope, all this aims to be is entertaining.

We were just inspired by the Apple "Switch" commercials, really. Just an Apple Switch spoof only, ok? Don't confiscate our video camera hor?

Video file for The WTF! Show preview 5 (video) - Switch ft mrbrown
(Quicktime MOV, Filesize: 4.1mb, Time: 00:00:29)

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

Technorati tags: singapore, mrbrown, podcast, podcasting, videobloggingweek2006.