Oooo, long entry up ahead.

Slayer, the -1 tracks are of some pretty common pop songs, like Unchained Melody by Gareth Gates, and hey hey, This is the Night, by Clay, and Beautiful by Christina Aguilera. It's called Sing Ballads, and i think it's being released in conjunction with the upcoming Singapore Idol.

Krystal, -1 tracks are essentially karaoke tracks. They're the accompanying music to the song, but with the voice of the singer missing.

From The Food Quiz. Italics are obviously my comments.

My Results
You are friendly and easygoing. Why gee! Thanks! People feel comfortable around you so it is not a surprise that many friends surround you.Looks around wildly. Where?? Where?? just kidding guys. :p You have high self-esteem and will not let anyone get you down.Er, yea, I stomp on like, the faces of those who oppose me.

You're very careful and circumspect in all matters but you won't face any problems until they actually happen. Because by then, they're staring you in the face so hard you have no choice but to slap them back Also you're a kind and sensitive person.Awwww....

You think positively about the people around you and are never prejudiced. Yea! You're all cool! This means others see you as a kind and gentle person..Awwww....again They enjoy listening to what you have to say because they respect you.You do?

You are logical, smart and inventive. Hee... oh stop it...Sometimes you are too cold and selfish.Man, you really stopped it

Luther

So I watched this movie with newbie on Friday night. It's basically about Martin Luther, the guy who broke away from the Catholic church in the mid 1500s [i'm bad with dates. sorry.] to start the Protestant movement.

So what's the difference between Protestants and Catholics? For one thing, Catholics regard the Pope as their spiritual leader, the Great Shepherd of All Them Sheep, while Luther's Protestant movement was a breakaway movement from the leadership of the Vatican at the time. Why was that? Well, according to the movie, the Vatican was.... well, one hell of a shithole at that period of time. See the scenes where peddlers hawk statues and medals of saints in the streets, the predecessor to the modern day religious salesman. See the 'indulgences' being sold.

What are indulgences? Well, at that time, you paid the Church some money, and they give you a piece of paper, which states that the Bearer of this Certificate wilt have access into Heaven upon death, bypassing Purgatory, or spend 500 less days in Purgatory or something like that. It's sort of like a Monopoly card that says go straight to the Go square, and collect $200 on the way. In the movie, that was one of the Church's main sources of revenue, the selling of these little Certificates of Faith.

What got Luther into trouble with the Vatican at the time was that he specifically spoke out against the selling of indulgences, and saintly relics. [examples of saintly relics: bones of the Apostles, a hair from St Peter's head, a fingernail of Mary etc etc...] Naturally Pope Leo at the time [did i get the name right? I hope I did] got irritated, 'cos he wanted to build his spanking new St Peter's Basilica and there was this irritating little priest helping to reduce his main source of revenue. What a pest. Please excommunicate him now and let's get on with the Basilica.

[Sidenote: The St Peter's Basilica still stands today, over what is believed to be the actual remains of St Peter himself. However, because of that building, the Vatican was officially made bankrupt.]

But then again, the Holy Father Pope Leo wasn't exactly the paradigm of faith. Hello, what pope has gold gilded bird cages? The Vatican was a cesspit of corruption and politics, and this spread to the area outside. In the movie, Luther remarks that there are whores specially for the priests. Ironic considering that Jesus originally threw the moneylenders out of the temple.

The movie shows how Luther was disgusted by all this corruption, and wrote his books, deriding the selling of indulgences and saintly relics. This got him into serious shit with the Vatican and he was excommunicated. [one of the ironies of the film is that later on, he marries Catherine Dubray, a runaway nun. Excommunicated priest and runaway nun. Hm.] However, his popularity was immense, and spread as a holy fire throughout Europe at the time. At the height of the Reformation, practically the whole of Europe turned Protestant, with the exception of France and Italy. Catholics everywhere became persecuted and hunted down. Churches were looted and their stained glass windows destroyed. [the Protestants believed they were destroying graven images of Christ]

Which is sad and ironic, because at heart, Luther is shown to be a theologian, a scholar at heart, and a reluctant warrior of faith. Indeed, he stands before a raving mob in one scene, and cries out that "This is NOT what I taught!" With the strength of his words, he manages to stay the mob and prevent them from destroying the church.

Overall, a rather interesting movie. The story of Luther is well told and engaging. Unlike the Passion, the director here has chosen good old fashioned storytelling techniques, which engages the crowd, rather than alienate it.

Aside, there seems to be a trend of historical and religious films these days. Before the Passion there was the Gospel of John, then now Luther, and Troy opens next week here too. Gee, what's up?

Also, I just remembered a little story I read in an email before:

The Dragonfly on the Shoulder

Once upon a time, there was a man and a woman and they loved each other very much. They had met as friends, and after a long and happy friendship, they advanced to the relationship stage. Everyone remarked how happy and compatible they were, and it was no surprise when they eventually got married.

What was a big surprise, however, was that a few months after they'd gotten married, they found out that the man had cancer. It was a particularly vicious cancer, and the man soon passed away, leaving his heartbroken wife behind.

In Heaven, the man pined after his wife, and he asked God, "Is there a way for me to see her again?"

God replied, "When she dies, and comes to Heaven, then you will see her again."

"I can't wait that long. Please let me go down to Earth and see her."

God was silent a while. "I cannot let you go down as a human, because you have already died. If I let you down there, it will be as some other animal."

The man paused when he heard this.

"However," God continued, "If you can make her recognise you, and fall in love with you again, I will turn you back into a human, so that you may enjoy the rest of your lives together."

The man was overjoyed, because now he had a chance to be with his love once again. Thus, of all the animals in the world, he went back as a dragonfly. This was because he remembered telling his lady love that if he ever died before her, he would come back as a dragonfly and sit on her shoulder. He was thus sure that in this form, she would recognise who he was and they would be together once again.

[I'm taking some creative liberty here, because my memory of the story's patchy. Bear with me guys.]

So he went back as a dragonfly, and he swooped around, looking for his love. To his joy, he found her sitting in the park where they used to sit while courting, and next to her was the doctor who had treated him. He flew near her, eagerly trying to get her attention, but she didn't seem to realise he was there. Indeed, he even got swiped at a few times!

Maybe she can't see that it's a dragonfly, he thought, I should try letting her see me. So he flew to where she could see him.

He flew near enough to finally hear the conversation between her and the doctor.

"He's been dead so long. You have to accept that he's never coming back."

"I know, but, it feels like I'm betraying him this way."

"He would have wanted you to be happy too, and I... I would make you happy. You know that."

"Yes, I..do."

As their faces drew closer, the poor little dragonfly was aghast. He tried flying around their faces, but they were ignorant to the world outside of themselves. Finally, as they kissed, the little dragonfly felt his heart break. He even managed to perch himself on her shoulder, but they were too otherwise engaged to notice him there. He sat on her shoulder, utterly miserable.

"I'm sorry about this." came the gentle voice of God.

"I understand. And in a way, the doctor was right. I would have wanted her to be happy. I just wish..."

"What?"

"I just wished it could have been with me, that's all."

"Do you want to come back to Heaven, as a man again?"

"I think... no. Please. Let me be a dragonfly the rest of my life. I cannot go through the same pain I went through as a man. Let me be a dragonfly here on Earth."

"As you wish."

So what is the moral of the story? It asks us to see if there are any dragonflies on our shoulders? Is there someone there who cares for us, but have never been noticed? Please be gentle to the little dragonfly, and take a care not to blindly swat him.

Hope you guys liked the story. :)

a bunch of jiapalang

or rather, a bunch of misc stuff.

note to Slayer: Auditions for Singapore Idol are in Jun, u keen? :) No sight of your MOAM yet, and the DVDs you asked for, but they're released a compilation of pop songs with -1 tracks, for the budding Idol-wannabe. Can check it out when you're back in Spore. J8's also going through major renovation, as in addition of more shopping floors, so can expect more shops when you get back.

firstly, a link to some stunning sidewalk art. I received these pix in an email from Sylveracyd, and Slayer and they're really good! [slayer: Why you fwded me an email which Sylver already sent to me is beyond me] Taken from the right angle, the pictures look amazingly lifelike. [plus the laptop one looks like my laptop. :p]

Sidewalk art

secondly, this was taken in the room of one of my P4 tuit kid's:



Slayer, meet one of Singapore's youngest Claymates :p

thirdly, guess what?

A urinal in the ladies' toilet. Who'd've thunk? And no, I wasn't crazy enough to sneak into the men's toilets. Can anyone guess what this urinal is for?

Now the longer entries....

Kill Bill......Finally

And with Vol 2 comes a sense of closure, finally, on the Kill Bill movies. Caught this movie on a Thurs, cos kena play out by a friend of mine. Supposed to watch with me and then end up going with other people. Grrrr......

So what's different about this from Vol. 1? Well, more on the stories behind the characters, and less of the... cheesy blood splattering. Hee. At this point of time the Bride has only 2 people left to kill, so there is the bitchfight between her and Elle Driver [Darryl Hannah] and then Bill. Frankly the fight between her and Bill is a bit disappointing, compared to the Elle one. They exchange a few blows, she presses some of the vital points on his system, and he falls down dead. Hm.

In this movie, more emphasis is placed on the characters, and finally we understand a bit more of the character of the Bride, her relationship with Bill, and all the other emotional stuff that was lacking in the first movie. Kinda balances out the 2 movies in a way I guess.

If you knew a bit of what went on in the first movie, you would be able to catch what's going on in this one, so even if you haven't watched Vol. 1, you should be able to follow the action. Just that you'll see less blood and action in this one. :p Watch out for the funny bits, like when with Pai Mei [Gordon Liu] suddenly talks in Cantonese and calls the Bride an American dog or something to that effect.

Spare the Rod...

A rejoinder to all those who have ever asked me why I never signed up with NIE to become a teacher. [merlin, are you seeing this? :p]

Preserve the dignity of teachers

This pretty much ties in with the scandal over the resigning of the Nan Chiau principal. Seriously, I don't see why on earth he has to resign over a little thing like this, and I don't see what's the big fuss about him hitting that girl. Goodness sake, it was a soft cover book lor. There's no lasting physical damage to the girl, apart from her dignity, and a repeat offender like the girl sometimes is just asking for it sooner or later.

Why do some parents want to pamper their kids to such an extent? Is it guilt, for not spending enough time with them? Is it over-protectiveness? A lack of faith in the resilience of children? Did the complainant in the Nan Chiau case think that whacking the girl with a book would inflict untold irreversible damage on the girl's psyche, and is in fact complaining because of the future psychiatric costs the family would have to foot for her future therapy?

Come on lah. Some of these kids are hardier than some adults. Last time when blading at Bishan Park with Quet and my dad, we saw a bunch of kids chasing each other on blades, [as naturally kids would do] and crashing into one another several times. Sooner or later, there was a multiple pile up on the skating area, where a few kids were piled up on top of one another and other kids decided to join in the piling by crashing into the pile. Then what did they all do after that? Get up, dust themselves off, and continue laughing and chasing each other, gleefully ignoring their parents' scoldings.

If some buffalo like my dad crashed into another adult like that, I'd probably start worrying about hip fractures.

Could that be the cause of overprotectiveness? Strangely enough, adults are in some ways physically weaker and less resilient than children, because adults' bones have stopped growing, and the body systems have started to slow down. Because we as adults grow weaker, we tend to be more careful when we walk [or blade] around. So then this tendency for safety extends to our kids, although we're the ones that need more protection!

How strange parents are huh? They want kids to experience life, but only after putting on knee, elbow, wrist guards, chest guards, helmuts and all the other chiapalang. By the time we deem our kids ready to go, they can hardly waddle out the door after all that weight. This is what we want to teach our kids? No wonder we're having problems with creative thinking and all that. We don't allow our kids to explore, we don't allow them to learn life's lessons, we don't allow them to live. And we push them to get paper after paper, thinking that that's the only guarantee of success for our kids.

When can we say that we have truly lived?

Weird Eggs, No Ham

Krystal thou hast only one task for thy quest... To bring home safely a bottle of Absolut Vanilla... Do not fret over the gin... I drink too much anyway...

Sad to say, the next major drama event in my life was my breakfast. :p I had this brainwave to make a pirated deli-potato, since my mom had baked potatoes in the fridge, and there were eggs and mayo at home. I started out by plopping the eggs in boiling water and waiting for them to, well, boil.

Now the last time I tried to make soft-boiled eggs, I actually left them too long in the water, so in the end they became hard-boiled eggs, much to my chagrin. This time, however, I left them too short a time a time in the water, so my intended hard-boiled eggs turned out to be perfect soft-boiled eggs. Bleah. Thank goodness I only cracked one at the time, so I just plopped the other one back into the water and turned on the heat to sauna-fy that bugger.

Who knows, suddenly there was a "POOIIIFFF!" from the kettle [i swear, it reallly did make that sound] and the kettle regurgitated some boiling water onto my stove. "Oh shit, oh shit" as I go over to the kettle, and open to see if some dead chick had hatched from my egg or something. [hey, you never know one day] My egg seemed to be fine, though, but there were pieces of cooked egg swirling around the water, so I quickly took it out, cracked it, and well... it was some strange hybrid between a hard and a soft boiled egg. My poor mutant scrambled egg. I should have never brought you into this world.

When you're hungry, you don't care anyway. So I had a plate of soft boiled, with soy sauce and pepper, bread, 2 baked potatoes and egg mayo for breakfast. What do I do? I heck care with the whole thing, throw everything into one plate, mix it all up and eat it as it is. My potato-egg-salad with soy sauce and pepper. Jamie Oliver eat your heart out, or rather puke your lungs out.

As some of you know, I have one of the strangest eating habits in the world.

Ok, before you guys all puke your lungs out... here's some pix...


Sunset walking home from mrt.


I really like this one, it's a gecko that was hanging on these grilles they've put up along the MRT tracks. This little bugger managed to climb way up high.

And finally,
Nocturne was done long time ago, when I was alone on a Sat night and wondering around town. Hope you guys like the pix. The one of Wheelock at the end is my fave.

Beli beli good, Krystal shalt get me a bottle of Absolut Vanilla and Quet shalt hand over custody of a bottle of gin to me. I shalt be a beli, beli, happy drunk.

Me no nothing to blog now, side from recent bout of fever/flu/god-only-knows-wat-germ-hit-me and cramps on Sunday, resulting in cancellation of one tuition class. Thankfully me managed to survive, after much, much sleep and cups of hot tea. Me not sorry to cancel tuition class because that one Mother scares me. That Mother damn damn hostile on phone. Talk like going to scold me for something, anything. Don't like talking to that Mother. Strangely Daughter don't really need tuition. Has 60, 70 marks for past exams. Typical kiasu mum. Easy money if not that Mother seem so grumpy round me.

In end me change to today. Now me have 4 students to gao ding in one day. Me would stand in middle of Bishan junction and wait for car to impose sudden death, if not for fact that me want to fly to Europe soon. Thought of holiday keeping me alive and earning money.

Me no feel like blogging much now. Me will wait for next momentous occassion to happen in me's life before me write it down. Hopefully, this would happen before me is 90 and dying. Me life not beli exciting right now. Me will see you guys later.