Top 10 Memories and Moments (2007)

A new segment: Top 10 Memories and Moments of 2007!

Of course, this is exclusive to me only, but some in here you may share in these times as well.

No photos, because some were quite photo-less, and many more were held out over a long period, hence making uploading photos quite a tedious and pointless task. So I’d rather use words to convey each and every memory, and hopefully I’m good enough for you to feel what I’ve experienced, and to be there with me.

Especially if you were directly involved in these 10 memories and moments (you know who you are).

My personal life-best of 2007, I’d say.

10 Lunch with Grandaunt and Granduncle

Best food I’ve ever had whole year! Peabody and Pretzel deserves a special mention, which is located at Sunset Way, near Bukit Timah!

My grandaunt and granduncle brought a bunch of us recently to go eat delicious German fare, including 5 different types of sausages, juicy, well-marinated pork knuckles (complete with side potato salad, meat loaf and sauerkraut!) Plus for appetizer there were delicious bread slabs with your choice of spread, along with special dip made of a custom blend of mustard and chili, and for dessert smackerooey delicious cupcakes!

Not to forget the premium-grade Australian blend of coffee as well, which was smooth, creamy and the right kind of refreshing. The best coffee!

9 Photography Club Farewell

It was a sad time, and it was actually painful to be leaving. The great EXCO of 2007-2008, Nigel F., Stephen, Gilbert, Joewie and Nigel K. gave us all great stuff, and gave great speeches (though of course mine was immensely entertaining ).

Ms Koh and Mr Fong were also great. Their joint card was marvelous, with Mr Fong’s brilliant caricature of my character well-placed in a bunny form, and Ms Koh’s beautiful photo of a carnival merry-go-round so symbolic.

Also, great pizza! Thanks guys, and Sec 4 photogs 2006-2007! We really appreciated it! It was a great year for us!

8 My 1st Dragonboating Training

That was back in March-April roundabouts. Great time, as I met new people, like Poh, Jon, Matthew, Joe, Rahaya, Joanna, Terence and Edward, who are all amazing people in their own rights and are so immensely funny.

Nothing can ever beat the freedom of open air and open water, and even though I would have preferred the sea, I was glad to have learned something new (technique correction liquid!!! ) and had some great memories from it.

7 Singing with Alaric Ng

Alaric knows what this is about. If he doesn’t, he deserves to be slapped.

Not much about it! Haha. Although those who have walked in on the concerto sessions might have a thing or two to say. Also great Deal or no Deal times with Ben Lee (also very fun!) The classrooms of Raja Block served us well!

6 Academic Interests

All right, so this yr’s GPA is the worst of in my secondary school life. Bah humbug. But still, I won’t be a pessimist and say I hated all of the year’s work.

All the teachers were great this year (or most of them anyway) and they were funny, smart, helpful and very enlightening and guiding. Of course I have a blog post for them specially (how could I not?) but those were great times, learning Maths from Mrs Tan (though it all went away at some point before the exams), HCL from Mr Sunny Chong (who kicks as much butt with English as he does with HMT) and Philosophy from Mrs Kristie Chen (let’s face it, 10 years down the road, with the same philo test, Dean will still be the only one to pass).

And my favorite lesson, though hard to find a favorite, was Mrs Tan Lai Lin’s bio lessons. She ruled with an iron grip, but she was still immensely funny and humorous and she knows SO MUCH! All those interesting facts, those documentaries, and I really enjoyed An Inconvenient Truth during one of her lessons, when she peppered it with her own personal insights. Who could ever forget Egyptian mummies that way?

Did you know, I kicked start 2007 with a 10/10 in the pop quiz about Matrices! Which, of course, seems so far away and impossible now…

5 Graduation Night 2007

I’ll bet many of you share this with me. Not just the Graduation Ceremony, but the Dinner at night itself. It was a great time, with a great show lined up.

Seng Henk, Titus, Shi Yang and Nabil made it a truly enjoyable show, and who could ever forget Wong Khai Cheong’s striptease? It was a bittersweet moment, as Breakaway and At The Beginning played during the ending slideshow for the whole Sec 4 cohort to reflect back on 4 long years in Raffles Institution.

Afterward, of course, there was ensuing balloon popping chaos in the hotel ballroom, as well as Superbowl madness somewhere along Marina. Absolutely unforgettable. Looks like our time ends here, and we move on now!

4 Reading my first Han Nolan book

There’s something about a good book that is so entrancing, that changes people, that uplifts people’s souls and alters their outlook on life and their character.

My first Han Nolan book was If I Should Die Before I Wake, which in my opinion is one of the best books I’ve ever read. A meaningful creation, written with flair and style, but yet meaningful, real, very impactful and emotional. I’ve learned so much from it, and not just what happened in Poland during World War II (all the anti-Jew massacres) but also more about how people are.

I’ve read A Summer of Kings (about racism in earlier times, which I’ve reviewed) and When We Were Saints (about faith and how two people, though believing in different religions, can learn so much from each other) and am currently reading Dancing on the Edge. Good books.

3 Drama Feste (Morrison) 2007

I’ve already thanked everyone I should thank in my Drama Feste post (see link toward the end of this post) and hence I don’t want to repeat myself. But, suffice it enough to say, the month of June-July was full of ups and downs, from the damn super-fun hide-and-seek sessions (surprising, really, how many places there exist) to the disapprovals of Ms Low of our fun-oriented rehearsals, to the eventual marvelous performance we put up during the 1st night.

Well done everyone, Yi Tao, Jarrell, Shang Cong, Chris, Mingzhe, and all the people of Morrison and Morrison Drama Feste (too many to mention)!!!

And thank you everyone for Best Script (but still hasn’t collected the 100 bucks from Mrs Albar yet…(:D… well, I’m not a $$$-greedy person) and I enjoyed every moment of our rehearsals and fun activities together. To next yr’s Drama Feste Morrison people, Seng Henk and I will go back and help out, not to worry!

To THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH!

2 Research Education 2007

No one has shared quite as many emotions with me as my RE group of 2007. Sure, Drama Feste was full of ups and downs, but it was for two months, while RE ‘07 was for the whole year, and it was fuller of ups and downs! To Marcus, Adriel, Paul, Daryl, you guys were the best RE mates I had of my four years (yes, they are!).

Who could forget our little scamparound in the rain outside Jurong! Who knew Pioneer Primary School had moved to another location! Marcus, Daryl, Paul and I had to scurry around in the rain trying to make sure we got the art materials to the teachers, which in the end resulted in the accumulation of a S$37 taxi fare (seems all too easy to accumulate now with the gross hike in fares!) and a taxi driver who told the best and most interesting stories!

And how about our touching and very real trip to HCA Hospice Care? Adriel’s musical talents were appreciated by all and I learned great lessons from many patients there. Not to forget Mrs Serene Seow as well, who taught us so much, joked around with us and she was like one of our ‘mates and best friends!

A big thank you to Ms Jacqueline Ang as well! Definitely a highlight of 2007, and we enjoyed working with everyone!

1 Japan Learning Journey June 07!

Bryan Nah and I went kayaking yesterday, and he mused about how much he enjoyed the all-night dai-di sessions we had either in their room or in ours. Even when we moved to the Disneyland hotel, we still daidi-ed, and it would have nearly been a tong xiao thing if not for my sudden diva requirement to go sleep, and the sluggishness of Joel and An Shing.

Not to forget how much fun Space Mountain was, and our Chipmunk obssession. You would not find another cartoony-group of human beings. We had a lot of fun with our tour guide, Ms Watanabe (cue Jarrell and Puhwai joking about her name), had so much fun on the bus with Joshua’s army of handheld electronic devices, even had a mini catfight with Ronald Sim (highly classy, but only because we won) and topped off with lots and lots of Japanese peas which made Alaric and I fart our merry way back to Singapore!

Those were great times, and Ms Sharon Xu was highly responsible and smart too. All in all, we bonded really well, and we had great fun for our final year.

The top 3 memories and moments can be found at this link:
http://fineattitude.blogspot.com/2007_07_01_archive.html

Memories and moments. There were bad ones too, sure, but why remember the bad right? The good is all that there is, and the good is all that there ever will be.

I just hope I’m lucky to live through this year. One can never know, or never be too sure.

My new year resolution is coming up in a separate post. For now, this post is just here to remind me, and maybe some of you too, that we made it through this year whole and without too much damage, and we should really be thankful for what we’ve achieved and gotten and learned in 2007.

Here’s a poem to encapsulate some of the feelings I’ve had as I recollected and reflected:

I sat in an empty place
And made this list of thoughts
With words all abound
I sat and wondered what about

I sat in an empty place
And counted back slow
From the start I stepped
Over the rocks, over the roads

I sat in an empty place
I heard the wings rush by me
I could hear the laughing screams
But I chose to keep my own

I sat in an empty place
As the moon rose before me
A glow of Mankind’s conquest
But I felt no peace

I sat in an empty place
And watched those people die
As I stood up, I stood up slow
And found I was still alive

It isn’t really empty
This place we thought it so

P.S. As I finished typing, it is exactly 12 midnight.

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2008!

It Starts With T

Okay, here are some really fun words for you people to enjoy.

If you are just some random blog reader, you would not know what these words signify:

Titanic
Tantantan
Tuvwxyz
Teal or No Teal
Tsunami
Tsarbucks
Thankyouforshoppingat7-Eleven
True Love Kiss
Together
Turkish Delight
Transformers
TTYL
Toot
Tausarpow
Toing
Toacahsoh
Takopachi
Tauhuey
Taxi
Ticktockcurrypok
The
Takbolehtahan
Taupok
Tuktuk

Or even better….

Toast.
Toast.

I want Titanic.

But Toast…

Next year, we’re naming ours:

Neel to the Queen
Nips on the Loose (Janet Jackson tribute)
Nikky Blonksky’ underarms
Nip it in the bud or anywhere else also can

Let’s have a toast! Cheers!

Or eat some.

Nah, I’m really fine with it.

I Am Legend… really?

If you had thought Will Smith’s new movie I Am Legend is a horror flick, you could not be more mistaken.

Will deviates far from the drama-laden and/or humor-heavy flicks he has done in the past, like The Pursuit of Happyness and Hitch.

Instead, he has opted for a thriller that is as psychologically frightening as it is physically.

In 2012, the whole of the world has been destroyed, ravaged away by a mutated virus that was originally intended to cure cancer, killing 90% of the world’s population and leaving those who are not immune to the virus behind as rabid, mutated vampiric beasts who cannot stand daylight and love fresh blood.

Colonel Robert Neville is one of the remaining immune survivors and is hunting for a cure to the virus, along the way encountering many of the beasts called “dark-seekers” and fighting through a lot, A LOT of crap.

The plot is simple, if not overly utilized and common. Resident Evil is the closest franchise to this movie, employing zombies instead of vampiric beasts, and removing the superstrength from the protaganist.

However, the humanity present in this movie outweights that of RE, ironically for most of the characters in IAL are not even humans. Will Smith delivers a very powerful and impacting performance, sane for most, but deluded and frightened, even borderline psychopatic on some levels and during some times, due to the lack of human contact.

Tom Hanks’ performance in Cast Away was one of the most outstanding one-man shows I have ever seen, and Jake Gyllenhaal’s performance in Donnie Darko was not too shabby either. But Will still blows them out of the water, effectively displaying his character on his sleeve. He ranges his facial expressions so readily it is shocking, from crouching in the bathtub listening to the monstrous sounds outside, to talking to mannequins as if they were real.

Will’s sanity, human touches and human flaws are so evident, magnified to a very visual level because of the lack of humans elsewhere in the film. When he enters the alley to hunt for his dog Sam, the fear he feels seems so realistic it radiates throughout the entire theatre, engulfing the audience with a thick and palpable tension.

Francis Lawrence’s directorship takes the unoriginal story to whole new levels. He keeps the story real, opting not to go for mindless, senseless and unrefined scares like monstrous heads popping out from crevasses and proceeding to roar, like a louder, ruder version of “Boo!” so often utilized in similar counterparts of the movie.

Instead, Lawrence goes for quieter, unassuming fear, converting the movie from the path of a B-grade screamer to an A-grade piece of work conveying themes about terrorism, the eternal and endless hunt for cures to all diseases known to mankind, and to the belief and trust in God, fate, and resigning therefore to the powers that be.

I was sitting on the edge of my seat, expecting sudden shocking low-grade jolts of horror, but instead finding myself liking the subtle approach of Lawrence, which is to first show the beast briefly, have a small window of silence and reprieve for the horror to sink in, and then slam it out of the ball court with finishing action and climax.

The main theme of Man’s continual and sometimes unethical hunt for cures to all the diseases in the world stand strong here, bolstered by well-shot scenes of the possible eventual outcome. A standout scene includes Neville’s well-polished, flashy sports car in between two rows of abandoned office buildings – a small rim of hope and colour sandwiched between drab death and doom.

Other standout scenes include Anna, one of the other later survivors of the virus, standing between Neville and her son Ethan in Neville’s living room, symbolizing the degeneration of humanity and the loss of innocence and youth.

Another good scene is the sliver of sunlight at dusk, cutting off monstrous, rabid mutant dogs from where Neville and his dog Sam are crawling painfully slowly to the car. The dogs are being kept in check by one last disappearing bit of light which serves to separate the good from the evil. The landscape may be the same all around, but the clear division between the monsters and the savior shows excellently the difference in being.

But rough transitions that jar the ears and senses, along with bad flashback scenes, take the movie down a few notches from the potential brilliance it could have been.

Flashbacks are hard to shoot, because they need to weave into the storyline and make sure the flow isn’t disrupted too strongly. Opting to go for dream flashbacks is weak; I expected better from the director. The TV show “Lost” does it well… flashbacks are done expertly and fitted into each and every scene on the island such that the flow is smooth, yet is uncomfortable enough to provide some level of differentiation between change of scenes.

The ending is lacklustre too. It is inspiring yes, which is much more than can be said for other monster-roaring, claw-slashing flicks, with Anna’s final words ringing with bravado before the movie ends, but the drop in that same tension that was found in the first part of the film is very disappointing.

Overall though, an overused plot, but several standout ideas and techniques, coupled with fantastic acting make up for it. A must-watch.

***^ 3 1/2 stars!

Merry Christmas all ye’ peeps!

Well, I’m blogging on an early morning on Christmas Day.

How apt.

First off, Merry Christmas!

If you don’t play World of Warcraft you would sorely miss the point of the above Christmas carol.

I’m very new to it myself. I need to be de-virginized!

Thanks, Shawn, for introducing the vids to me!

Anyway, have a happy holidays (or what’s left of it)! I realized I hadn’t proclaimed a happy holidays on this blog at all!

The Real American Idols

Okay, so as per suggestion from Claire, and after hearing Blake’s new album Audio Day Dream (thanks, Louis!) I have decided to put up the Top 10 list of the best albums from American Idol alumni (not just best albums from the 1st-placer or 2nd-placer).

Many may overly judge these albums because they were borne from a reality talent competition (which I personally feel are subjective) but you’ll be surprised at how good some of them are.

Of course, these albums aren’t necessarily in my Best of 2007 list (many were released before 2007, in fact) but they remain as highly-favored albums from the franchise.

11. Based On A True Story
Kimberly Locke (2nd Runner-up, AI Season 2)
Released: 2007
Best Tracks: Change, Band of Gold

Again, I’m cheating a bit with an 11th album, but it’s only fair as this album is such a powerhouse classic. Although not every song on the album is well-written (some songs are even dull and uninspiring, something you’d find on lesser works), K-Lo’s full and raw and strong voice makes up for a lot of it.

This album is good, much better than many in the market, but its performance on the charts is an indication of how much more work K-Lo has got to do with the songwriting.

10. My December
Kelly Clarkson (Winner, AI Season 1)
Released: 2007
Best Tracks: Sober, One Minute, Don’t Waste Your Time

Kelly veered furthest from her pop roots in this album. All of the songs you hear on My December are very borderline on pop, venturing far into rock and harsh alternative sounds.

The arrangement on many songs are uncommon, and Kelly has many songs with minimal backing music, relying solely on her vocals and enormous reserves of talent like in Sober and Irvine, removing that pop, radio-friendly sound for more unfamiliar, yet heartfelt lyrics and tunes that she felt reflected where she was.

It sure won’t make much of an impact on radio charts, but it is an album that is crucial toward the development of Kelly as an artiste.

9. Fantasia
Fantasia Barrino (Winner, AI Season 3)
Released: 2006
Best Tracks: When I See U, Hood Boy

A very R&B album, Fantasia also let go of her pop roots, but she welcomed in a more gospel, Southern sound. Hood Boy is very ghetto, very thug, very upbeat, and When I See U is a softer approach, tuneful and very mellow.

She did a good job on this album, but she has not yet reached the point Kelly has yet, a point where she is sure what music she wants to do and what she wants to achieve in her career. It is somewhat mechanical, but at the very least the music stays true to Fantasia’s roots.

8. Elliott Yamin
Elliott Yamin (2nd Runner-up, AI Season 5)
Released: 2007
Best Tracks: Wait For You, Take My Breath Away

Elliott’s first album is extremely good, with mature sounds and a very clear, crisp voice. Wait For You is the definite highlight, with a piano intro and riff throughout that is reminiscent of S-Club’s Never Had A Dream Come True.

His voice is clear, with so much soul and emotion injected in it that he out-souls even Taylor Hicks, known for his Soul Patrol sound. That said, Elliott needs to even out the tone of the album a bit more, as after listening to it, the listener doesn’t have a good idea of what the album represents and what is the connecting theme that connects all the songs together as one album.

7. Carnival Ride
Carrie Underwood (Winner, AI Season 4)
Released: 2007
Best Tracks: Wheel of the World, So Small, Crazy Dreams

“Like a carnival ride,” is Carrie’s intrepretation life on her joint-tour with Keith Urban (“Life, Love, and that whole crazy Carnival Ride”) and this album is one that means it. The songs Carrie had a hand in writing represent many of life’s ups and downs.

From the sad eternal cycles of humanity as sung in Wheel of the World, to the aspirations and hopes of many, in Crazy Dreams, to the unimportance of what most of us waste our life on in So Small, Carrie belts out each song with strong gusto and a clear belief in what she’s singing, which makes each song so perfectly humane and emotional.

Blake Lewis (Runner-up, AI Season 6)
Released: 2007
Best Tracks: 1000 Miles, How Many Words, I Got U

Blake’s standout tracks aren’t the ones which he beatboxes intentionally. Rather, his best are the songs which he sings with an emotionally-racked voice, with the beatboxing coming in only at the start, toward the end, or during hooks and instrumental parts. He surprises much more in this album that Jordin did with hers, because Blake takes so many risks and establishes himself from “Break Anotha” onwards with the seasoned air of an experienced performer.

This album has strong resemblances to JT’s Futuresex/LoveSounds, with the equal classiness of a jazz/electropop piece of work, but Blake differentiates that because he uses a lot more standout vocals, drawing from Clay Aiken in I Got U, from Crowded House in End of the World, from Maroon 5 in 1000 Miles, sounding uncannily like them in the songs, but having his own personal touch as well.

Throw in the skilful piano compositions mixed with the funk grooves to elevate the overall feel of the album, and you have a classic in Idol history.

5. Measure of a Man
Clay Aiken (Runner-up, AI Season 2)
Released: 2003
Best Tracks: This Is The Night, When You Say You Love Me, Perfect Day

Clay Aiken’s album is pop. Pop full-out, with none of the jazz-electropop of Blake, or the soul of Yamin. And what good pop it is too. Clay’s voice is so unique, so defined, with the right edginess needed in Perfect Day, the right loving tone needed in When You Say You Love Me, and the right inspirational full-bodied belt required for This Is The Night to work.

Reuben could never pull off Clay’s masterful vocal ability, and that’s something we should all be glad for.

4. Some Hearts
Carrie Underwood (Winner, AI Season 4)
Released: 2005
Best Tracks: Wasted, Don’t Forget to Remember Me, Lessons Learned

What more can be said about Carrie other than she embodies a perfect Idol? Nearly flawless morally, with an extremely special set of lungs and voice that was given by the Powers That Be, she sings each song with energy and the right balance of country-pop that established a name for herself.

Granted, she only co-wrote one song on the album, but that doesn’t stop her from making some of the best songs I’ve ever heard from an Idol winner’s debut.

3. Nothin’ Like Summer
Carmen Rasmusen (6th-Placer, AI Season 2)
Released: 2007
Best Tracks: Silly Me, Nothin’ Like The Summer

She’s the only one who didn’t finish up to final 4 during her run on AI on this list. But it goes to show you don’t need to win Idol to make a good album (unlike some winners, who can’t make a good debut album even…). Nothin’ Like The Summer is a clear country distinction, with such classic Western sounds that it’ll be hard to label this album otherwise.

Carmen doesn’t hold back with the emotions, bringing in full-force with the wistful emotion on Nothin’ Like The Summer, as well as longing love and sadness on Silly Me. A good piece of work, considering she didn’t have as much as the Idol winners and runners-up had.

2. Daughtry
Daughtry (Chris) (4th-Placer, AI Season 5)
Released: 2006
Best Tracks: Breakdown, Feels Like Tonight, Crashed

Daughtry’s band won big at recent AMAs, which shows the American public is clearly digging him. And why not too, with such amazing music that showcases Chris’ songwriting skills and skilful singing, trademarked with his throaty growls and ending notes.

Chris wrote some amazing songs here, with such catchy rock beats and killer hooks and lyrics that spill so much. Each individual song is a good composition in its own right, coming together as one to form an album which is so remarkedly devoid of superficiality.

1. Breakaway
Kelly Clarkson (Winner, AI Season 1)
Released: 2004
Best Tracks: Breakaway, Gone, You Found Me

This album embodies everything a good album is supposed to be, and more. It has the important songs needed for Kelly to inject the realness and maturity in, like Breakaway, Because of You and You Found Me. It has the pop songs required not to dent, but to punch, a hole in the mainstream charts, like Walk Away, Behind These Hazel Eyes and Since You Been Gone.

It results in a flawless concoction of music, with so many different emotions and ranges that you will find yourself repeatedly playing and playing this CD, over and over again. It is truly the defining moment of Clarkson’s career yet.

There we go.

The top albums, in my opinion, of the Idol alumni. You won’t find many winners here, like Taylor or Jordin or Reuben, because their albums simply weren’t up to the mark.

Sure, I haven’t heard all albums from Idol alumni (how am I to know if Sanjaya comes out with his own work?) but from what I’ve heard, from winners and non-winners, I can gleam this list of 11.

A Day of Fun and Fear

I’ve honestly never before been afraid of a mechanical screen with red digits just ticking away.

But I’m getting ahead of myself here.

So yesterday, 19th December, one day before the official release, my momma and I went to Nuffnang’s exclusive pre-release of National Treasure: Book of Secrets.

Of course, being the lazyheads we are, my mother and I both fell asleep after lunch, and to wake up at 5 pm. The movie is at 7 pm. We had two hours to get from Serangoon to Suntec City.

Naturally, it was a hectic rush to get clothes on, to the shower and out the door.

And what was the only course of action?

A taxi, of course.

I cannot believe how EXPENSIVE the freaking fare is!

I mean, yeah sure, you hear about it on TV, and on the news, how the fare went up from 2.50 starting fare to 2.80, and how the surcharge is no more a flat 2 bucks, but 35% ON TOP of the fare you are already paying. And also how the City surcharge is now a whopping 3 fucking dollars.

At the end of it all, the taxi fare was close to 20 whole dollars. The surcharge alone was like a mini-fare in its own right.

Wow it was frightening. It was fearsome. I swear I even saw my mother shivering as she pulled the two notes out from her wallet.

Anyway, that was the fear part.

The fun was the super-exclusive day-before-official-opening premiere of National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets!

Starring Nicholas Cage, Helen Mirren, Jon Voight, Ed Harris and Diane Kruger, that movie is a whole truckload of fun, squeezed into little over two hours. Lots of mysteries and puzzle-solving, ala Da Vinci Code, but more glamorous, lots of action and chases scenes, which is always good (and expected in a Bruckheimer film), and mixed with a fair share of classic acting from my favorites Kruger and Mirren.

Also not to forget the elaborate sneak-in-sneak-around parts, which remind me most of Alias, but with Nicholas Cage taking Garner’s place. Some parts were too fantastical though. I mean, come on, kidnapping the President? Sneaking into the freakin’ Queen’s office? Buckingham Palace?

Even Syd Bristow couldn’t do that. That’s way outta her league. Besides she would never crawl into a dumbwaiter. Too unglam.

But I loved the ending. It tied up the whole movie well enough. And though many might lampoon the movie’s lack of balance between action and plot, and at times confusing transitions, it was still loads exciting.

Anyway, that was the fun part. It wasn’t “Enchanted” fun, or meaningful like “Lions for Lambs”, but it was pure, action-packed, leaping-around-but-also-using-brains fun.

So overall, fun, but with fear. My mom really doesn’t like to take photographs… like all other Singaporeans.

Damn those Comfort-Delgro taxi cabs.

P.S Look at what they did to the Fountain of Wealth. It looks like a really shiny, really glitzy Flamboyance of Wealth.

Asian Idol… WHO?!

OK, so the Asian Idol is Hady Mirza.

Get over it already.

So he isn’t the best. But watch this to find out how good he really is:

Jaclyn Victor, Malaysian Idol, is in it as well.

Best duet of the night, made even better by Kui Jien’s off-hand remark: “Singapore and Malaysia in perfect harmony. That’s something you don’t get to see very often.”

Ouch.

And how true.

Besides that wonderful, amazing and truly spectacular performance by the two Idols closest to our hearts, I observed 15 other small titbits about AI (Asian Idol, lah) for the uninitiated:

1) Performance night was boring. Everyone performed really averagely, or borderline bad. Songs were picked by producers. Shocking! Not really.

2) On Road to Asian Idol, did they REALLY have to show Steven Lim? Like, wtf? That idiotic stripperella weirdo being a representation of the other side of Singapore? Was that necessary?

3) All the judges were surprisingly tame. I could just see Ken Lim and Paul Moss aching to bite off the contestants’ heads, but they held back for the sake of diplomacy.

4) During results show, bad production errors resulted in Agnes Monica’s performance being overlayed by some production instruction: “10 seconds up! Switch screen!” Not good.

5) See video (above) of Hady and Jaclyn giving the hottest performance of the night, and Kui Jien’s remark, while he was thinking: “Ah Shit! My mouth moves too damn fast!” Jac and Hady should really form a duo, a la ‘Eurythmics’, but more like called ‘Johor-Tuas.’

6) Siu Black (Vietnam Idol judge) was scary. When “When You Tell Me That You Love Me” started up, I saw Mau enter and sing, and I tot, “Eh? Why got echo one? Another production error?” And I realized that scary woman was singing along, prompting the producers to quickly go, “EH! SHIT! Siu is singing! Quick, mute her mic!”

7) Siu Black and Phuong Vy performing together wasalso scary, to say the least. I didn’t understand a word that came out, and Siu Black reminded me of that Liu Lingling character in 881. Somemore the way she sounded she would have liked to eat the boy that “must have been around 17″.

The show hosts were unprofessional. Dead air and silence, and Kui Jien and Daniel even bantered about WHO LIKED PHUONG VY MORE?! Phuong Vy tried to hide her irritation (she can understand English, you idiots) and looked like she couldn’t wait to tear Daniel’s head off.

9) The Indian judge was REALLY forgettable. Plus he stole one of Ken’s lines. “Oh yes, Asia wins in the end!” Must have pissed him off real bad.

10) Taylor Hicks’ performance was subpar. Heaven Knows was fine, but I would have expected Do I Make You Proud to be excellently inspiring. Instead he cut it short, didnt show any powerhousing signs like he did during AI5, and the Asian Idols were forced to back him up instead, a completely redundant move. Kelly Clarkson, understandable. Not Hicks.

11) Lotsa focus on Indonesian Idol Mike Mohede. Sure, it’s his home soil (which was why I thought he would win too, though I voted for Hady and Mau. Miss World 08 anyone?), but the focus was too concentrated and heavy on him (no pun intended). Besides, he looks uncannily like Reuben Studdard.

12) Mike Mohede shouldnt have dueted with Guy Sebastian. The starting key of Angels Brought Me Here was too low for Mike, until the bridge and close to the chorus. Bad programming by the producers.

13) Two hours of a results show may rake in the $$$$$ for advertisers and SMS phone companies, but it honestly was too long for a mortal to withstand and bear the brunt of boredom. Hady and Jac’s duet couldn’t make up for all that time wasted.

14) Mau Marcelo was a complete diva (good for her) but her performance with Rivermaya was again, unnecessary. And I felt the Indian Idol was kinda redundant except for his obvious presence required at the competition… >< Underused talent alert!

15) Hady won. Who cares if he won because of secondary SMS voting, because of his fantastic performance with Jaclyn Victor, because he sang songs Kurt Nielson and Taufik sang, or because his fan club gone mad and voted like crazy rightfully?

He won. Charming all the girls and a couple of Asian gay guys along the way as well, with his “too-good-looks”, quote, unquote Indian Idol forgettable judge.

Now that’s an Asian Idol.

P.S Please, ABC-TV, Jakarta producers, Idol franchisees everywhere… Heed my plea and save us all. Don’t make another Asian Idol. It was God-forsaken enough already.