Get Up, Stand Up

Guys I know this is a late post. But I wish to inform as many of our fellow Asians and Singaporeans who could be still unaware of this incident. Disclaimer: You don't have to adopt my stand.

This is about the old trishaw uncle who was ridiculed and cheated of his money.

Original Footage
Interview part 1
Interview part 2

Ok. I admit the interview does make him look abit angelic and pitiful, but that's tv for you. I also admit that the replies and responses of some people are somewhat violent and ungracious. I was one of them and it's the only natural reaction. So to those who want to use that to turn the tables around, don't tell me if you got raped one day, you're not gonna react violently, verbally and physically, when you find the rapist.

Anyway what has happened is set in stone. They took a ride, made fun of the old man because he's slow, they refused to pay, they thought(maybe they still do think) it's funny, and they posted it.

There is no excuse for what they did. It is obviously a result of them thinking that they are caucasians, and hence they can do anything. Doesn't matter if they are drunk or not. If they were, and regret what they did, they would have apologized, instead of parading their unethical behaviour.

I have read some pretty ridiculous responses to the situation (you can see one for yourself, here. i'm audioman there)

Please, I urge us as Singaporeans and Asians to stand up for ourselves. Nobody can shut us up. Not that we should make unnecessary hooha out of nothing, but we will not rest until our case is heard, and heeded. I'm encouraged by how the old man took it peacefully (I can't do it), and all who stood up for our own people. Especially Laurette from expat@large's blog. I've read some posts slamming the uncle. It disgusts me still just to think about it.

The issue is now pretty much resolved. But if ever anything like this should happen again, let nothing (read: N-O-T-H-I-N-G) dull our senses so much so that we think it's just a passing breeze.

P/S: sorry this came so late. I only heard it from kevin yesterday. I couldn't stop reading and writing about it. Been at it since 2am.















David



P/S: I hope nobody's extremist enough to execute their own 'justice' by imitating the Finland shootout guy or CPL Dave Teo.. We're smarter than that.

Att: Santa. My wish list

To all santa clauses out there, i'm gonna list some of the things I want for this christmas here. so please keep on reading.
(if you'd like to let me know if there's sth i can get you, pls do let me know so I won't have to think too hard to get you a present, or end up getting you sth irrelevant which will end up (if it's lucky) in your storeroom)

CDs:
1. Sting - Ten Summoner's Tales
2. Vinnie Colaiuta - Cinnie Colaiuta
3. Tower Of Power - Very Best of Tower of Power: The Warner Years
4. Count Basie - (any big band tracks with count basie!)

Others:
5. a bass guitar [no brand in particular. just name your axes and i'll pay the taxes. no cheap-ass samick stuff pls cuz i have that already] (i'd pay for this but it'd be nice if you could give a christmas discount =))


Yep.. That's all for now.
Now this is quite achieveable right? =)



Quote:
You can give without loving, but you can't love without giving -rick warren
(this has nothing to do with my christmas requests. =))

the buzzZZzzzZZzz of life

Greetings everyone.

I'm currently having withdrawal symptoms from not being able to find The Return Of The King, being the third part of LOTR. So I've been forced to read The Hobbit, which is also as good as LOTR when it comes to showing the reader the Middle Earth's wonders personified and walking the reader through the plains of the world after the Elder Days (i.e. New Zealand, if they do make The Hobbit into a movie). That's still ok, but after searching out 3 libraries (including the national library) I have now in my bag Tales from the Perilous World and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Pearl Sir Orfeo. I haven't started on the second, and the first compared to LOTR is similiar to Roald Dahl's short stories compared to his classics, just less random.

Got scolded in band practice today for not being able to keep crotchets on the bass drum. Then got scolded during big band practice for not being able to read tow gay fast enough.In fact, it's not even fast. It's just plain slow. It's days like that that brings me back to reality. A little less confidence to steer me to not think too highly of myself. That I guess could be a good thing. Some sort of a reality check. But I can assure you it's not motivation I feel.

and life is getting boring. anybody got any interesting websites to introduce? maybe i should go check out the matrix philosophy webbie dawn intro-ed me.

AND I NEED SLEEP. i think i get a total of about 7 hours of sleep everyday. but i just can't help but knock out within 5 minutes of sitting still (especially on rocky bus rides) and when i don't knock out i'll be half asleep as sometimes I make links in my head that don't make sense. AT ALL. i could be sitting at the desk thinking about how I'm gonna spend christmas, and my trend of thought could slowly but steadily steer towards how gandalf is planning to eat lunch at the cookhouse after raiding my bunk. i swear i'm not making this up.

i thank God life is still good

i hope the same goes for you all faithful readers. even if it's not, don't look on the down side. what has happened can't be undone, so we can all make ourselves feel better by not dwelling in feeling lousy and stupid for our mistakes/mishaps. Tomorrow can be a better day.

peace y'all
david

Burnout

yo guys sorry i haven't been posting.

Anyway God's been good to me, life has been easy on me. I hope this goes on forever. Haha yup that's me. Easily contented and stagnated. Haha

Btw caleb intro-ed me this band Norwegian Recycling.. Basically, they(or he) do(or does) mashups. Gotta give it up to him. Very smooth transitions and all.. I wonder how he took out everything except the vocals.. anyway here are 2 nice songs by him/them. Some people will look upon it as how boring and duplicated music has become, but I see it as how 4 simple chords, 1 5 6 4, or even the way overplayed 4 5 3 6 turnaround find in half of the gospel songs written since the 80s, and more than half the pop songs we hear today, can be injected with every individual's own flavours and genius lyrics.

The 2 songs sound especially nice towards the end when everything's so heavily layered, but ever so poppishly that it's not tiresome for the ears.

anyway here it is:
8 become 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FeYSkxQxcRM
how 6 songs collide: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JKKl95Ttrc


p/s: i finally found a picture of myself!

Letter to Mr Arsene Wenger

Dear Mr Wenger,
WHY THE *!&@ ARE YOU LETTING ADEBAYOR PLAY SO LONG?
Has he not done too many unnecessary one-touches, and let loose too many potential goals nicely set up? (Not mentioning the passes he's been making to the phantom Henry)
I'm sure you'll let somebody else take his place (I think bendtner's a good idea).

Arsenal Forever,
David

C: pop

Yo guys. This is one of the nights which I will regret tomorrow.. It's been like that for the past 4 nights, and tomorrow will be my 5th day in a row dozing off in anything I do.

My cell group and I went to K-box yesterday (a first time for me) to....... I suddenly can't remember what for. But anyway it's got something to do with Theresa before she gets married but it's nothing near a sabotage. Anyway, it turned out to be Wen Ai's birthday so we passed around to card to sign in front of her (I wonder if she saw) and dedicated a Happy Birthday song to her. This song. I still remember it. When I was secondary 1, I went to karaoke with my godfather. It was a birthday celebration for one of his friends, and of course, they sang the happy birthday song. AND IT'S THE SAME CHEESY MTV WE SAW YESTERDAY. It was this teenage blonde girl's birthday and they had a cake in the living room of their white-ish bungalow, and guests started streaming in with gifts and all.. I'm sure some of you have seen this evergreen video before.

It was fun seeing everyone sing. And it's the love that kept them in the room when I was singing. Wen Ai's obsession with S.H.E., Shuwen's preference for oldies (Everly Brothers man.. even the MV was in greyscale! haha), Reuben's ability to sing any song, Sinlong's photography expertise, it was fun man. I'll see if i can get some pictures from Sinlong.

To my surprise, K-Box was a lot more fun than I had thought it to be. We sang lots of C-pop songs by jay chow, david tao, stef sun (all of which are artistes I used to like a long time ago, but also which I have forgotten to listen to amidst all the new(and old) music). Reuben and I attempted a H-pop(hokkien pop) song which proved to be as disastrous as it can ever get. haha.

Anyway all these C-pop artistes have very nice songs with very meaningful lyrics and very interesting arrangements. I should go get my hands on some of their cds this weekend. Jay chow, in my opinion, is the chinese "jay"son mraz.

He has a song called '(secret) signal' and it's interesting how he parallels a couple so in love and later on slowly losing steam to a handphone that's slowly losing the ability to receive signals sent to it. It starts with him talking about this couple not letting people know that they're together at first, how they're "walking in the tunnel", and then the girl eventually wants to "get out and feel the breeze", to let the world know that they're together. But the boy prefers not to let people know so that their opinions and gossipping won't crowd out or interfere with the signal they have between them. Anyway, then through a sudden twist of fate, the girl loses the ability to receive signals, and the boy is searching and searching but still he finds nothing.

Anyway since a video speaks a thousand words, here's the jay chow secret signal MV

F.I.R.'s Fly Away and Our Love, Stefanie Sun's Wo Yao De Xin Fu, and many other songs keep ringing in my head. I guess it's the Singaporean (or maybe just the Chinese) frequency that's resonating in my heartstring.

Anybody wanna go K-Box don't forget to jio me!!


Support local, make it global

the grass is always green where you're not

Dang.. The accents for the previous post didn't come out right..

Anyway I've come to the conclusion that it's pretty pointless in thinking that after doing this, or once i buy that, or once i get to this point i want to get to, I will finally be satisfied. There is no such thing as a better girlfriend, a smoother drumset(of course if you wanna mail me a dw set pls don't stop now), a nicer workplace, all because "better" is not a constant. It's just a mad and endless chase from one point to another. It's just an occupational hazard that most of us cannot shake off, and that is to keep ourselves busy. When life is more on the repetitive side we look for adventure, and when we get too tired of the insecurity that adventures bring we long for a quiet life by the countryside. In the most uncliche-ish cliches, the grass is always greener on the other side.

Sure we should look for betterment and embrace change. But sometimes we just gotta look out for delusions which brings us longing for our old little grass patch, or for some, a field of Venus flytraps in the Addams Family backyard.

Not many people make drastic decisions with drastic implications every other week or month. Some wait their whole life pining for the one day to take that taxi to the great unknown, and that's when they find that the grass may not be greener, or even as green, but one day it will be as glorious as when God walked in the garden of eden.

That's just a theory. I'm still at the stage of recognizing that i should stop field-hopping. I look forward to the day when God tells me to move (or stay) because I know that's the best(maybe worst it will seem?) place to be.




Why do people train to play fast? The top drummers in the world don't play even half of their grooves and fills at their top speed. It's because when they can play fast, they can play slow easy and effortlessly.
-a certain pro drummer