Tokionic

My two favourite quotes from a Paul Graham essay

2008-10-29T15:05:00.001+08:00

From "A Fundraising Survival Guide" by Paul Graham
http://www.paulgraham.com/fundraising.html

"4. Be flexible.

We advise startups to tell investors there are several different routes they could take depending on how much they raised. As little as $50k could pay for food and rent for the founders for a year. A couple (of) hundred thousand would let them get office space and hire some smart people they know from school. A couple (of) million would let them really blow this thing out. The message (and not just the message, but the fact) should be: we're going to succeed no matter what. Raising more money just lets us do it faster."

"5. Be independent.

A startup with a couple (of) founders in their early twenties can have expenses so low that they could be profitable on as little as $2000 per month. That's negligible as corporate revenues go, but the effect on your morale and your bargaining position is anything but. At YC we use the phrase "ramen profitable" to describe the situation where you're making just enough to pay your living expenses. Once you cross into ramen profitable, everything changes. You may still need investment to make it big, but you don't need it this month."

Be ramen profitable!

Masterpiece Starscream

2008-10-28T08:59:00.001+08:00

Better than Optimus Prime, Ultra Magnus, Megatron and Galvatron put together!

MP-3 Masterpiece Starscream from U-toys, China Square Central, Singapore

Chicane Live

2008-09-28T14:34:00.001+08:00

At the Chivas Live Rain Party at the River Valley swimming pool on 26 September 2008. Totally rocking party! The music was great, the venue was brilliant, the crowd was amazing and the vibe was excellent. Please do it again, Chivas!

Samurai Busking

2008-09-28T14:29:00.001+08:00

The shakuhachi was a flute-like instrument played by the samurai in edo-period Japan. Meet Yosuke Irie, the shakuhachi player, who busks at the Mandarin Gallery on Orchard Road. Ancient japanese funk.

F1 Season

2008-09-28T14:19:00.001+08:00

Is the best time to check out all sorts of motor racing. Here's a pic of the WRC Suzuki Swift on display at Suntec City.

F1 Fever

2008-09-24T13:47:00.001+08:00

Has hit us too... Here's a pic of the replica Renault car at Tangs. Beautiful piece of machine.

Quasimode at the Clarke Quay River Festival

2008-09-20T23:53:00.001+08:00

Musicians, like hackers and painters...

Batman: The Killing Joke

2008-06-29T15:34:00.001+08:00

Finally bought this Batman graphic novel at the Kino 20% sale over the weekend. Excellent and truly seminal stuff. It ends with a joke, and a truly beautiful one, at that, casting the relationship between the Batman and the Joker in clear light. I love this comic!

Batman: The Killing Joke graphic novel - the origin of the Joker a seminal piece of work - 20% off! from Kinokuniya, Ngee Ann City, Singapore

Let's talk about catchy tunes

2008-06-28T23:21:00.001+08:00

UniqueFrequency posted on his blog about the HP Touchsmart PC ad and how the tune was really catchy and viral. I checked out the ad and felt kind of disappointed. Here's the HP ad first:

Now have a look (and listen) at this one:

Honestly speaking (and I know this is probably going to be subjective), which ad has the catchier tune, and which video is more compelling?

Alright, everyone's gonna say, "He's an Apple fanboy and is gonna love whatever crap Apple feeds him anyway." Well, actually I'm not that big a fanboy. Go with what works best for you, I say. And go with whoever delivers the better experience. In the case of the two touch ads, I kinda prefer the Apple one.

Incidentally, the Apple Touch ad was first created as a fan video by Nick Haley without the permission or guidance of Apple. It floated around virally on Youtube for a while, and Apple were so impressed that they asked Nick to help make the actual ad for Apple. Or that's how the story goes, at least. Check out the Nick Haley version below. You'll be amazed how much the final "professional" commercial resembles the original "amateur" one. Respect to Apple for being able to recognise a catchy tune and video! I don't think HP have really figured that out yet.

And if you're curious, the track in the Apple Touch ad is called "Music is my hot hot sex" by a Brazilian band called Cansei de Ser Sexy. You can watch their original music video here, which, incidentally, was the most popular video on Youtube at one point, with close to 90 million views. How's that for viral? (The original video was taken off Youtube sometime back, after it hit #1, so it's not on the most popular list anymore.)

Small Girl Big Appetite released on Podfire!

2008-05-24T23:04:00.001+08:00

Podfire's new food show, "Small Girl Big Appetite", is fresh out of the editing room at podfire.sg and sgba.tv. A lovely first episode shot at the French Stall on Serangoon Road. You can watch it (and future episodes) at the above links. I've embedded the first episode here too:

A rather well-shot and presented show, being only the third series Podfire has produced. I'm keeping an eye on these guys to see what else they have in store in the video podcasting space. I'm also rather keen on the smoked salmon and sea bream!

We were at Barcamp Singapore!

2008-05-23T11:49:00.001+08:00

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Barcamp Singapore II on Wednesday night was great. Some really interesting speakers from Google, Singeo, Lilihood (loved their control interface) and Homespace, and I loved Preetam's idea pitch about object-tagging. I didn't get to catch the Mobile breakout, because we were presenting a demo on Shoplette for the Maps session, but I'm sure it was great too. Will have to check out the video once it's out.

I think what really made Barcamp II for me was the feeling of learning from each other and sharing our approaches. It was great that the participants weren't just talking about what their site/service did, but also their approach to different problems and how they solved it. That was really helpful. Kudos to Singeo for the tip on Fire Eagle and Skyhook, and also to the Homespace team for their tips on Clusterer and custom info windows for Google Maps. We hope, when we have more stuff on Shoplette, we can share tips that might be useful and valuable to other startups as well.

Barcamp II was the first time we spoke about Shoplette to a public audience and it was a good experience. I think what we gained most was from the questions people asked about Shoplette and the feedback they shared with us about the service. And we actually met a few of our users at the event, which was a real blast!

It's great when you actually get to meet the people who use your service because you get a much better sense of who your market is. Putting an actual face and personality behind your users beats any kind of demographic description in trying to understand what they're expecting and might like from the service. Plus the fact that you get to thank them profusely for their support! (We're incredibly grateful!)

So thanks to the organisers of Barcamp II for a great event, and I'm definitely looking forward to the next one!

Remember to have fun!

2008-05-20T21:15:00.001+08:00

Great words of wisdom from Chef Giovanni on "Jamie's Great Italian Escape":

Remember to have fun!
Not just work, work, work.
Let your hair down and play once in a while.

Strangely, my idea of fun is learning Objective C and Cocoa. Erm... Not quite right. But, damn! Objective C really makes object-oriented programming so natural it hurts not to.

We're (finally) in Beta!

2008-05-06T10:05:00.001+08:00

Well, actually since a couple of days ago. But I finally have time to blog about it!...

We've been a total of six months in development, three months for the current version, and after a harrowing few months in closed Alpha testing, Shoplette is finally in Public Beta! Do check it out at http://www.shoplette.com

Launching a Beta is scary. There's no doubt about the importance of getting a beta out in the wild quickly in order to test, test, test - you'll never really know the market response otherwise, and you might be working yourself into a corner or dead end without any live feedback on whether the whole idea makes sense. But when you really have to bite the bullet and release your service for market testing, it's pretty scary.

What will they think of it? Will anyone like it? Should we keep working on it, and cleaning it up more, before we let anyone else see it? Do we have only one chance with users, and if it's not good enough now, will they ever come back? These were the questions circling overhead before we launched the Beta.

But in the end, it's something we've been looking forward to for a long time now. A chance to put Shoplette out there in the wild, and to see if it's something people will like to do. You never really know until you test it, and I'm glad we bit the bullet and got it released.

So now it's in your hands. Please check it out, sign up, give it a spin and let us know what you think. We're really happy to receive any feedback from you, good or bad, at team[at]shoplette[dot]com.

Hope you enjoy the site!

http://www.shoplette.com

PSPs on Public Transport

2008-04-17T15:56:00.001+08:00

On average, there are 4 PSPs in any MRT train carriage everytime I board the train. I suppose this varies by the time of day (probably happens more in the afternoons and weekends than peak hours on workdays - but then, maybe not) and the carriage (maybe they gravitate towards the end carriages where they can sit down and play).

But anyway, it's an interesting observation. If you take it as an average and multiply that over the number of carriages in an MRT train (??), I think that adds up to a fair number of PSPs.

Apart from possible hypotheses we can suggest about lifestyle and consumer purchasing trends and the ubiquity of handheld gaming, there are also interesting thoughts to draw out about social behaviour in public and on public transport, the idea of private space in public space and common behaviour within this semi-private space, and of course, being in a private (?) virtual world (the game) while sitting in a very public real world space. How natural is it to switch frames of reference from real to virtual, or offline to online, these days?

How does it feel / to be on your own / like a rolling stone?

2008-04-10T23:34:00.001+08:00

Listening to Bob Dylan now, which I haven't intentionally done before. I'm surprised that I haven't. Perhaps out of fear. That I should identify with his music and his writing. And fail to reconcile.

But today I am in exactly that mode. Of early dreams frustrated. Of ambitions abandoned disillusioned. Of a loss of faith in progress. But also a feeling of liberation. Or being thrown into the wild. The great unknown ahead. A heady mix of fear and excitement.

Living with uncertainty and launching into the unknown, taken positively, a pioneer spirit, negatively, foolhardiness. Where there a constant feeling of discomfort. And yet the freedom allures.

What is it about freedom that makes it a value unto itself? Is it really all that it's cracked up to be? Political freedom, moral freedom, economic freedom, financial freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, freedom to choose, freedom to act, freedom to live, freedom to be. Something so intangible, yet so desired. Something so contentious, yet so accepted.

How does it feel
To be on your own
When no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone

- Bob Dylan, Like a Rolling Stone

Beautiful poetry.

Poll on whether Wong Kan Seng should resign over JI leader's escape

2008-03-07T01:43:00.001+08:00

This is interesting:

http://www.luckypolls.com/10013/should-wong-kan-seng-resign-for-kastaris-escape

At the present time, out of 452 votes, 375 voted "Yes, he should resign", 52 voted "No" and 25 voted "Not sure".

How will the vote turn out with more voters?

You can vote in the right-hand column of the online citizen's homepage:

http://theonlinecitizen.com/

Why is this the #1 video on youtube?

2008-03-06T00:39:00.001+08:00

Close to 90 million views!
One comment said, "Tired of being sexy" (which could explain why it's appealing) and another said, "I love this song". Some other people are suspecting a hack. Or is it an avalanche of people sharing it (out of surprise that it's got so many views) and other people viewing it out of curiosity? Do people have to like a video for it to be #1?

It beat this other video, which had 77 million views. It's impressive, though.

I don't think I understand the mechanics of viral videos yet.

Here's someone else's take on it:
http://www.waxy.org/archive/2008/03/05/new_vide.shtml

I like this one:

Speedtesting your Internet connection

2008-03-02T13:41:00.001+08:00

I've just done a speedtest for my Starhub connection.

How does this compare to yours? Click on the image to speedtest your connection.

Del.icio.us ain't working for me

2008-03-02T12:28:00.001+08:00

I spend far too much time doing research on the Internet. And as a result, I generate a lot of bookmarks, and a lot of sites I return to regularly. I used to think that del.icio.us was a great way to solve the problem of organising my bookmarks and making them accessible anywhere.

But I'm beginning to realise that once I file something on del.icio.us, I forget about it and don't return to del.icio.us to access it again. It's file-and-forget, and these days, my only contact with the site is through the "post on del.icio.us" bookmark. I now use my browser's bookmark menu and tabs to bookmark and return to sites far more than del.icio.us. Which kind of defeats the purpose of filing on del.icio.us to begin with.

Does anyone else have that problem?

Dim sum coffeeshop on Upper Thomson Road

2008-03-01T18:10:00.001+08:00

Wonderful little find on Upper Thomson Road, along the same row of shophouse coffeeshops as the 24h Roti Prata House (with the crispy prata).

It's called Hwa Nam Chinese Restaurant (华南菜馆) and it serves excellent freshly-steamed dim sum at $2 per plate. Fantastic! With incredibly friendly and affable staff, you can also order roast duck and other Cantonese cooked dishes from the kitchen.

Do check it out. Closed on Mondays.

The Chinese blogosphere

2008-02-28T18:37:00.001+08:00

I'm just beginning to understand the subtleties of the blogosphere and its effect on cyberculture and life in general. Fascinating, really.

Here's a great article (from 2004) on the Chinese blogosphere and its emergence from newscientist.com

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn6707.html

The 'blog' revolution sweeps across China
19:00 24 November 2004
Special Report from New Scientist Print Edition.
Xiao Qiang

It took a chance online encounter between a software engineer from Shanghai and a teacher in a remote province of China to start shaking up the power balance between the people and the government of the world’s most populous nation.

In August 2002, Isaac Mao, who worked at the Shanghai office of the chip maker Intel, was one of only a handful of people in China who had heard the word “blog”. A regular web surfer, he was fascinated by the freedom these online journals gave to ordinary people to publish both their own and their readers’ views online.

Surfing the US website blogger.com, Mao was thrilled to find Zheng Yunsheng, a teacher at a technical school in Fujian province. He left a message on Zheng’s blog, and two weeks later Mao and Zheng started CNBlog.org, China’s first online discussion forum about blogging technology and culture.

They soon gathered a small but devoted group of participants, many of whom went on to develop the technology that makes blogging possible for China’s half-a-million bloggers.

Dozens of arrests

Ever since the Communist party took power in 1949, the Chinese media has been tightly controlled by the government. Online publishing is a real threat to that control, and the government is clearly worried. A crackdown in 2003 closed websites and internet cafes and saw the arrest of dozens of online commentators.

Yet this is not proving enough to stifle the pluck and ingenuity of China’s bloggers. The rise of the blog phenomenon was made possible by blog-hosting services. Just as companies like Yahoo host email accounts, sites like blogger.com, based in the United States, host blogs.

Blogs usually allow room for readers’ comments, and because they often contain numerous links to other blogs and websites, they each act as a unit in a dynamic community. Together they form an interconnected whole – the “blogosphere”.

When Mao and Zheng started CNBlog.org, China had 67 million internet users. Today, it has more than 90 million, and most are hungry for information. The official China Internet Network Information Center in Beijing says 62% of internet users go online primarily to read news. Internet cafes are spreading rapidly throughout China, even in rural areas, largely thanks to official efforts to promote technology and improve the country’s economic competitiveness.

Great Firewall of China

But the government also fears that uncontrolled online information will cause the regime to collapse. Since 2000 China’s police force has established internet departments in more than 700 cities and provinces.

The net police monitor websites and email for “heretical teachings or feudal superstitions” and information “harmful to the dignity or interests of the state”. Since 2002, all internet service providers have had to sign a self-censorship pledge before they can operate.

Perhaps the most effective component of government control is the “Great Firewall”, which protects the nine gateways connecting China to the global internet. Its main function is to prevent surfers in China from accessing “undesirable” web content.

Research at the Berkman Center at Harvard University has found that blocked sites include overseas Chinese-language news websites, such as BBC Chinese, and most news sites originating in Taiwan and Hong Kong; and religious and human-rights websites such as Falun Gong and Amnesty International USA.

But things were starting to change when Mao began his grass-roots publishing effort. Technology writer Fang Xingdong in Beijing, who made his name with a book criticising Microsoft’s business in China, started a news and commentary website, BlogChina.com, which covers the development of China’s IT industry.

Zero cost

Fang coined the Chinese term bo ke to mean blogger. He encouraged his readers to try blogging by registering on blogger.com. “Blogging is a true revolution,” he wrote. “One needs zero technology training, zero institution and zero cost to become a blogger.”

By January 2003, China had about 2000 bloggers when, without warning, the Chinese government blocked all access to blogspot.com, the server that hosts all blogs registered on blogger.com.

The net police do not make the reasons for such actions public, but Chinese bloggers point out that DynaWeb, an anti-censorship service run by overseas Chinese, had been using a blog on blogspot.com to publish proxy server addresses that allowed users to get around the Great Firewall. The authorities’ blanket blockade affected all China’s bloggers, leaving them suddenly unable to reach their journals.

The censors probably did not anticipate the bloggers’ response. For many, blogging had become an addictive activity. With nowhere else to go, many followed Mao’s lead and started to look for solutions inside China.

Three small start-ups offered them a refuge; Blogcn.com, Blogdriver.com and Blogbus.com. All were blog-hosting services started just a couple of months earlier by people who had first gathered on Mao’s website. All were based inside China, and inside the Great Firewall.

Banning “truth”

At first, the new companies attracted little attention from the government. In early 2003, most Chinese who wanted to comment online were using not blogs, but online forums like bulletin boards and chat rooms. These allowed people to express themselves anonymously and therefore safely, and were already beginning to have a social impact.

But there is a catch. Whether in China or elsewhere, such sites are usually moderated by editors who keep them relevant and readable. In China, the moderators also keep their sites’ content acceptable to the censor, so when users try to post a “forbidden” comment they receive a warning message such as “your post contains sensitive and indecent contents”.

Posts on politically sensitive topics, such as Falun Gong, human rights, democracy, and Taiwan independence, are routinely filtered by this means. A list recently obtained by the China Internet Project in Berkeley found that over 1000 words, including “dictatorship”, “truth”, and “riot police” are automatically banned in China’s online forums.

This type of censorship is part of the wider internet crackdown that intensified in 2003. Dozens of people who published politically provocative articles online were arrested.

The net police closed almost half of the country’s 200,000 internet cafes, and installed surveillance software in the rest. In Liaoning province, where 40% of the people who go online do so in internet cafes, software was installed in 7000 cafes to track track web users’ online movements and keep records of their names, addresses and ID numbers.

Sex diary

In this stifling atmosphere, it was hard to see how the nascent blogosphere could possibly grow and develop. But over the next few months, the concept of blogging received a boost from an unexpected source.

A magazine writer in Guangzhou in southern China, who wrote under the name Mu Zimei, began keeping a sex diary on blogcn.com. “I have a job that keeps me busy, and in my spare time I have a very humanistic hobby – making love,” she wrote. “The partner I take in my hobby is one I choose and always changes. I rely on a large supply pool. I do not need to take any responsibility for them; neither should I give them love. They will not cause me problems. They are like CDs, which will not make a sound unless I play them.”

With explicit details and sometimes even publishing real names, Mu Zimei’s sex diary was a hit. By mid-November 2003, more than 160,000 people had logged on to her site and the number was growing by 6000 a day. While her explicit writing and lifestyle challenged traditional morals, causing heated debate in the Chinese media, Mu Zimei also made bo ke a familiar word for hundreds of millions of people.

As the Mu Zimei debates raged, the number of users on blogcn.com leapt from 20,000 to 160,000. Other blog sites saw similar increases.

Avoiding censorship

Blog services are now sprouting all over China. By the end of October 2004, China had more than 45 large blog-hosting services. A Google search for bo ke will return more than two million results, from blogs for football fans to blogs for Christians.

And while the larger hosting companies have become subject to censorship regulations, smaller companies and individuals do not face the same pressures. Any tech-savvy user can download and install blogging software themselves, bypassing the controls.

Blogs play an important role in republishing and spreading information as quickly as it is banned from official websites. One example of this played out in September when China’s most influential bulletin board, Yitahutu, was closed down by the net police. Unlike other online forums, Yitahutu was moderated by its users, who voted to decide which post should appear on the front page.

Without a moderator to blame for comments they did not like, the censors reacted by closing down the entire site. By that time the site had more than 300,000 registered users and 700 discussion forums, including many on politically sensitive topics such as Taiwan, anti-corruption, legal reform and human rights.

After the closure, all the major university bulletin boards were instructed to delete any discussion of the event. Even the name of the site was censored from Chinese search engines.

Finding euphemisms

But the net police found it much harder to purge discussion of Yitahutu’s closure in the blogosphere. Bloggers are quick to find euphemisms so that they can continue conversation despite keyword filtering. And most blogs have so many entries that it is easy for an individual to post an occasional provocative comment without being detected.

Two days after Yitahutu’s closure, He Weifang, a prominent law professor at Peking University, where the forum was founded, wrote an open letter to the university’s president, urging him to defend the site on the basis of freedom of expression.

His letter was removed from the major online forums after one day, but in that short time it had spread through the blogosphere. There are simply too many blogs for authorities to block them all.

The potential of blogs to act as news sources is relished by some Chinese bloggers. One site, Chinanewsman.net, founded by journalist and programmer Li Zhaohui, is a haven for news that is banned from the official media. Within its first five months of operation, Chinanewsman was closed repeatedly, forcing Li to switch internet service provider six times.

But it survived, and now hosts around 5000 blogs kept by journalists. Some of the information is available only to registered users who join by invitation. This mechanism has protected the site, probably because the censors are, in general, more tolerant of these semi-private spaces.

Moblogging services

Meanwhile blogging seems set to grow as a national hobby for the younger generation. Providers of China’s 300 million mobile phones are beginning to provide “moblogging” services, with which users can send text and photos directly from their phones to their blogs. For now, most blogs are personal, but their potential for building networks of people and disseminating news cannot be underestimated.

As for Mao, he now enjoys a large following among Chinese bloggers. He has become a successful high-tech investor and uses his blog to gather donated books for rural schools. While others see blogs as a tool to promote social change in China, Mao does not associate his love of blogging with a political agenda.

Asked whether he has a strategy to expand blogging under China’s censorship regime, his response is Taoist: “What is our strategy? We do not have a strategy. But the information flow in the blogosphere has its own Way. The Way is our strategy: personal, fast, connected and networked.”

Xiao Qiang is the director of the China Internet Project at the University of California at Berkeley. He runs China Digital News blog at chinadn.org.

Macbook Air now available at Funan Apple Centre (Multimedia Integrated)

2008-02-26T17:36:00.001+08:00

I now understand what all the fuss is about. Having held the machine (can you still call it a machine?) in my hands, it really feels like you're holding an envelope or A4 folder. It's that light and thin.

When you think about that experience, the lack of ports and slower core aren't such huge stumbling blocks anymore. And I hear from programmers that it's good enough to do most of the things you want to do (including coding). So contrary to my earlier beliefs, it's not a "secondary laptop for bringing on business trips or showing off at Starbucks."

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a convert yet, and the cost is still a bit steep for me. I'm still happy on my 12" G4 Powerbook and prefer the smaller footprint. But I reckon there's a big future for the macbook air product line, and the market appeal will be wider than I first imagined.

Personally, I'd wait to see the next revision of the air - probably faster core speeds and bigger drives at the same price point. But if you want to get hold of one now, Multimedia Integrated (Funan Centre) has them in stock at S$2988 and S$5088.

I Feel Alive Again

2008-02-12T20:02:00.001+08:00

Check out Has' February mix on http://www.rawjak.com

Pretty stunning stuff.

And ain't we nothin' but proud o' this one...

400% Bearbrick set by SBTG (Singapore).
http://www.royalefam.com/royalefam/main.html

Pride

2008-02-12T12:45:00.001+08:00

Pride is an interesting thing. It's considered one of the seven deadly sins, but it is also what can motivate a person to go beyond himself.

Pride is a strong motivating factor for a person to act, sometimes stronger than survival. Faced with a dire situation where survival is at stake in some form or other, depression can overcome the survival instinct, but pride can overcome depression.

More interestingly, faced with a non-dire situation where the survival instinct is ineffective, pride can be a stronger motivating force than material incentives. Think of the man who strives to succeed at his job, or at a sport, not purely for material gains, but for the sake of his pride, to prove to himself and others that he can indeed succeed. Could this motivating factor be stronger than other material and emotional factors?

Another interesting thing about pride: On the one hand, it is a selfish concern - one's own pride, and one's own ego. But when extended to the idea of the pride of a nation or the pride of a team, which is possibly linked to the pride of the self in a transcendent sort of way, it pulls on motivating factors beyond personal ego or face, and can drive a person to act in the interests of a larger body, sometimes at substantial risk to oneself, for the sake of the pride of that larger body, one that does not have tangible existence beyond the collection of other individuals such as himself. How puzzling.

How many people are truly proud of their country?

Good stuff to watch

2008-02-08T00:22:00.001+08:00

1. Terminator - The Sarah Connor Chronicles

Set within the rather confusing timelines of the 3 terminator movies, this new TV series currently airing in the US is about Sarah Connor and her son John Connor (future leader of the resistance and all that) running away from the Terminators sent to kill them. It gets more interesting though, because they're joined by a friendly teenage girl Terminator sent back in time to help them survive. Cute robot love.

2. Battlestar Galactica Season 2

Remake of the 70s cheesy-sci-fi-hit series. I loved the original, actually. The new series is not bad. Starbuck is hot in a strange kind of way. And so is the Korean Cylon. Wait-a-minute... Korean Cylons?!

3. Friday Night Lights Season 2

I liked Season 1, and Season 2 is currently airing in the US. It's a bit more melodramatic and over-the-top than the first one, probably because American viewers found it too subtle and boring. Pity... A little unbelievable this time around, but still entertaining, I guess.

4. Great Teacher Onizuka

A great Japanese Dorama about a biker-gang member who decides to become a teacher and helps to turn around the lives of a class of unruly students in a school that has stopped believing in them. The series was shown in the late 90s and spawned a TV special as well as a movie.

5. Naruto Shippuuden

A natural favourite for many anime lovers. Currently airing in Japan.

6. Bleach

Another natural favourite. Strangely, many Bleach fans don't seem to like Naruto fans... Also currently airing in Japan.

7. Gundam 00

I think this may be the best Gundam series I've ever watched. It feels less juvenile than Seed and Seed Destiny, the characters have more interesting and varied background stories, and the political twists are surprisingly engaging. MS-08 comes close though. Currently airing in Japan.

Male Chauvinist Taxi Driver

2008-02-06T23:57:00.001+08:00

I had a rather unpleasant conversation with a taxi driver this evening about the role of men in families and society. It had to do with tradition and Chinese New Year.

It began seemingly uncontentiously with the driver talking about how young people don't respect tradition anymore, but unravelled into a spiel about how the father is the head of the family and when one visits a person's house for Chinese New Year, one must always offer one's oranges, signifying luck and prosperity, to the father or oldest male in the house. When I said I'd offer them to either parent, he was rather vexed and exclaimed, "The woman has nothing to do with it! The man must be the one to receive the signs of prosperity, and when you leave the house, the woman is the one who offers them in return to the visitor!"

He lamented about how men had given up their role as head of the family and let women rise in standing and take care of the family. And he offered an analogy of a tree growing in the soil. The soil is the mother, and the seed is the father. In his opinion, the soil is nothing and the most important thing to the tree is the seed. In other places, where there is soil and no seed, there are no trees. WTF?!

A misplaced sense of duty and responsibility is one thing, but I think what that driver had in his head was just male chauvinist crap. I was wondering if his wife and children hate him.

Blogging with Marsedit is addictive

2008-02-06T15:05:00.001+08:00

It really does make blogging a lot easier and more convenient. No more slow and laggy web interfaces to deal with. Just type and go!

Here's another classic pic for everyone's enjoyment.

Trying out Marsedit with Blogger

2008-02-06T13:39:00.000+08:00

So how does this work, then?...

Marsedit is a simple and easy blog editing software that lets you write your blog entries offline and upload them easily. It's also got easy ways to add image and links, an that's about all you need for a blog entry, isn't it?

Check out these army boots I want to get - Marine Corps approved, too!

A Funny Fellow

2007-12-18T19:35:00.001+08:00

Character on a wall in Haji Lane

How I Work 2

2007-12-18T14:08:00.001+08:00

Yes, they really are all running...

How I work

2007-12-18T12:09:00.001+08:00

Ok, I admit. It's a little bit crazy to have 3 macs running at once... But the older ones still need to feel loved!

Adidas Christmas Tree

2007-12-16T16:51:00.001+08:00

Isn't it cute?

Beautifully Tragic

2007-12-16T15:43:00.001+08:00

Dead bird on pavement.

Christmas Decor

2007-12-16T00:51:00.001+08:00

At the Blu Jazz Cafe on Bali Lane. Christmas is a nice time of year.

Urban Samurai

2007-12-16T00:49:00.001+08:00

Graffiti art by Antz for Tiger Translate.

Highrise window cleaning

2007-12-12T15:12:00.001+08:00

Dangerous work. But amazing.

Back alley beancurd

2007-12-11T19:53:00.001+08:00

At rochor road. It almost feels like Taipei or Hong Kong.

The Groovisionssin Exhibition at the National Museum

2007-12-07T16:10:00.001+08:00

Many yummy chappies!

Kleine See by Takashi Kuribayashi

2007-12-07T15:59:00.001+08:00

Mixed media installation at the national museum atelier.

Eji's dj set at old school

2007-11-30T22:02:00.001+08:00

Dj Eji from tokyo.

Motomiya Yasuharu live in singapore

2007-11-30T20:00:00.001+08:00

Motomiya Yasuharu's live at oldschool on mt sophia

Fire on orchard road!

2007-11-22T12:09:00.001+08:00

At the specialists centre phoenix hotel construction site. A whole lot of smoke.

SCC Rugby Sevens 2007

2007-10-27T17:10:00.001+08:00

It's good fun, really!

Roast pork with crackling

2007-10-23T20:32:00.001+08:00

The incredible roast pork my dad made last saturday.

Design talk at asylum

2007-10-19T21:02:00.001+08:00

An rare intelligent talk about design concepts by milkshake(hk) at asylum.

Farmer's chicken salad

2007-10-12T15:42:00.001+08:00

I don't even know why it's called farmer's chicken salad. I'm pretty sure the chicken came out of a nasty battery. But it's a quick and simple recipe for a light lunch.

Season the chicken breast or deboned thigh with salt and pepper, and pan-fry with some oil for about 10min per side. Hard-boil an egg in the meantime. Once both are done, slice and serve on a bed of chopped lettuce and tomatoes. Simple!

You can also grill the chicken if you prefer.

Teriyaki chicken thigh with aglio olio pasta

2007-10-11T20:26:00.001+08:00

Finely chop 4 cloves of garlic and set aside.

Prepare the chicken thigh: debone if necessary, rub a little oil, half a tablespoon of light soya sauce, half a tablespoon of dark soya sauce and half a teaspoon of sugar on both sides. Add half a tablespoon of mirin to make it authentic, but it's ok without. Then grill in an oven for 10 min skin-side down and 5 min skin-side up.

Meanwhile, boil the pasta. Keep watching the chicken and stop the oven when done! Once pasta is cooked, heat some oil in a hot frying pan and lightly brown the garlic, then toss in the pasta with the heat off to flavour.

Finally, serve the chicken with the pasta on a bed of chopped lettuce for that mos-burgerish feel (and your daily dose of greens).

Yes, this also works in a burger bun with mayo but I only had pasta handy.

Buttery grilled chicken on roasted pepper, cherry tomatoes and new potatoes with rosemary and smashed garlic

2007-10-09T22:36:00.001+08:00

Place halved new potatoes and halved yellow pepper filled with scored cherry tomatoes on a lightly oiled oven tray, season with salt and pepper, drizzle with olive oil, add small knobs of butter and 2 sprigs of rosemary to potatoes, and roast in oven at medium heat for 10 min.

Meanwhile prepare chicken thigh - season with salt and pepper, slip a thin slice of butter under the skin, and place small knobs of butter and 3 smashed garlic cloves on other side.

When vegetables are soft, place chicken skin-side down on bed of pepper and tomatoes and roast on high heat for 10 min. Finally, flip chicken skin-side up and grill for 10 min.

Once chicken is done, plate up and drizzle any juice from the tray onto the chicken and potatoes. Serve!

That's a lot of fruits!

2007-10-09T17:08:00.001+08:00

Growing out of our balcony. I don't know what fruits they are, though.

Concept pasta #1: Fried breakfast pasta

2007-09-28T15:32:00.001+08:00

Crispy bacon, sausages, pan-fried tomatoes and a poached egg on aglio olio pasta with fresh ripped basil.

Tiramisu at substation's tunnel party

2007-09-28T15:28:00.001+08:00

Rizman Putra is still a great frontman.

And the 'game testing research facility' that I left behind

2007-09-28T15:26:00.001+08:00

It was all work, honest!

My empty cubicle on the last day of work

2007-09-28T15:24:00.001+08:00

That was on the 31st of August 2007. Hurrah!

Me and my nephew as a totem pole

2007-09-01T13:51:00.001+08:00

Lost in Austen

2007-08-26T17:09:00.001+08:00

A choose your own adventure Jane Austen book!

Chateau Sissan 2001 Grande Reserve Bordeaux

2007-08-26T15:09:00.001+08:00

Very dry and grapey

Chateau La Branne 2002 Medoc

2007-08-18T14:20:00.001+08:00

Very grapey, spicy and a little dry.

Proper fireworks!

2007-08-18T14:16:00.001+08:00

The longest firework display I've ever seen I reckon.

Fireworks!

2007-08-17T20:48:00.001+08:00

Not exactly. This is the floating stage where the fireworks will go off. It was a nightmare getting to the right seats. But a beautiful view.

Mountain biking part 2

2007-08-06T16:53:00.001+08:00

And the view from up there.

Mountain biking

2007-08-06T16:52:00.001+08:00

Spent the morning of my birthday mountain biking at bukit timah. This is the view from down here.

Sunset jams 2007 bsx races

2007-06-23T22:51:00.001+08:00

Trackside seats for the the bicycle supercross race at sunset trail.

Sunset jams 2007 jump of the day

2007-06-23T18:32:00.001+08:00

Sunset jams is a local bmx, bsx and dirtjump competition at sunset trails, tampines bmx track. This was the jump of the day for me by Keong, one of Singapore's best bmx riders.

Timmy at Timbre

2007-06-22T23:57:00.001+08:00

Great band. They play every friday night at Timbre, at the substation.

Strong, dry and flavourful

2007-06-18T10:24:00.001+08:00

Chateau moulin de curat
puisseguin saint emilion 2001

Financial management and analysis

2007-06-18T10:19:00.001+08:00

A good text on financial management and analysis. Google it, you might get lucky.

Spicy Ribena

2007-06-09T01:09:00.001+08:00

Not the most classy of wine reviews but at least I know why I liked it.
2003 Louie Latour Beaujolais Superiere

SMS turned haiku with accompanying random photo

2007-06-04T00:22:00.001+08:00

An SMS mistakenly sent to the wrong number assumes life as a haiku and receives one in return.

Received:
Please vasanth you
Buy gurde, lemon rice
Or call me

Sent:
The lemon rice
Will call in your field
By morning or sour

Noridan's Incredible Machine

2007-06-03T23:41:00.001+08:00

Up close but in bad light.

Noridan (Korea)

2007-06-03T23:33:00.001+08:00

Sprocket Parade - a 'sonic playground' incorporating music, dance, mime and sports by Noridan from Korea. The imaginative group of young performers combines lively percussion and a recycled orchestra into a musical vehicle for a great outdoor performance. Check http://noridan.haja.net.

The View without Zoom

2007-06-03T23:18:00.001+08:00

See earlier reference to skyscrapers and HDB flats.

Where is this?

2007-06-03T23:09:00.001+08:00

Spotted from the observation deck of the Meritus Mandarin. Where is this house, who is using it and for what purpose? Its location, surroundings, design and condition all suggest a story to be told. Perhaps there's more to Singapore's skyline than skyscrapers and HDB flats.

Teacups

2007-06-03T22:19:00.001+08:00

This was the most interesting thing I could find in the new National Museum. A collection of teacups from coffeeshops in the 1950s(?). I liked the teacups but the museum seemed a tragic waste.

Dragon Pattern

2007-06-03T18:16:00.001+08:00

A gold painted wood carving from the ceiling of a buddhist temple tucked away in the heart of town.

Skater girl

2007-05-27T15:06:00.001+08:00

Not many skater girls in Singapore. And this one's pretty good. With as much determination as the boys to nail tricks. I wonder how long she'll keep at it?

The beginnings of my startup career

2007-05-24T01:06:00.001+08:00

It's just a notebook, but you've got to start somewhere!

My ride

2007-05-06T00:46:00.001+08:00

My current ride - a norco torrent freeride hardtail. Part steed part tank. Great at high speeds, stable at low. Set up with a Rock Shox Pike and Atomlab Trailpimp wheels, and soon a SRAM x-9 drivetrain. Sweet! In the meantime, singlespeed's a bugger..

Babe at the Beach

2007-05-01T22:23:00.001+08:00

A photo of a babe taking a photo. We're not sure if we're meant to appreciate the composition of the photo, reflect on the escher-esque nature of the subject, or simply ogle at the girl. It's fortunate that life is full of choices.

Sunset

2007-05-01T21:54:00.001+08:00

Sunset at Cafe del Mar Singapore.