Lee Kuan Yew on Facebook

25 07 2008

Don’t be alarmed. This is not Minister Mentor, Lee Kuan Yew’s own personal facebook profile, but a special facebook page for famous politicians. You can show your approval for these politicians by becoming their supporter on facebook.

To see the full list of politicians, including Barrack Obama and Wen Jia-Bao, you can visit HERE.

I tried to search for our current Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong and Senior Minister, Goh Chok Tong, but both were not on the list. I guess all the other politicians in Singapore still have a long way to go to attain the kind of global status MM Lee has achieved.

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Satay eating competition: Joey Chestnut and Takeru Kobayashi face-off in Singapore

24 07 2008

As part of the Singapore Food Festival, the two most famous competitive eating athletes in the world, Joey Chestnut and Takeru Kobayashi will be facing-off to see who can eat more satay. To spice things up, there will be a Singaporean representative chosen to compete with them too.

If you don’t know who the two of them are, check out the video below showing their face-off for a hotdog eating competition last year ( WARNING: Don’t watch the video if you are eating something now):

More information is available on omy and the Major League Eating Asia site.

The event details are as below:

Date:27 July 2008 (this coming Sunday)
Time:4pm – 7pm
Location:Robertson Walk

From now till 27 July, omy is also running a online guessing contest, inviting netizens to guess how many kilograms of satay Joey Chestnut and Takeru Kobayashi can finish off together this Sunday. The 4 closest predictions will win food vouchers from Old Chang Kee, Carl’s Junior and Pie Kia. You can visit here for the details or submit your guess directly here. :)

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Carina Lau and Tony Leung: 2008 Wedding of the Year

23 07 2008

This is not a movie screen shot. It’s for REAL. :)

Hong Kong’s most famous celebrity couple, Tony Leung and Carina Lau have finally tied the knot after dating for more than 20 years.

The couple got married on 21 July 2008, in the beautiful kingdom of Bhutan. If you don’t know where the heck Bhutan is, it’s a is a landlocked nation in South Asia located amid the eastern end of the Himalaya Mountains. If you are interested to explore traveling to Bhutan for a holiday, you can visit HERE to find out more.

Some fun facts about the wedding (via omy):

1. The whole wedding cost more than S$7million
2. The ring alone cost S$5million
3. The bride’s gown is by Vera Wang and the groom’s suit is by Tom Ford
4. The couple were received by the King of Bhutan himself Read the rest of this entry »





Who is Gloria Chee (徐诗韵)?

21 07 2008

(pictures via Smell of Rain official site)

According to her IMDB biography, Gloria Chee was a graduate from the pioneer batch of Film, Sound & Video (FSV) program, Ngee Ann Polytechnic, Singapore, and was the first FSV graduate to direct a full-length feature film (Smell of Rain (2006)).

She’s quite a seasoned filmmaker isn’t she? :)

Do you know she is also the same Gloria Chee who was recently bombarded by netizens for ripping off a Japanese TV ad for a National Day Parade (NDP) video?

Initially, I didn’t want to comment on this issue as I thought she might have been some newbie filmmaker being exploited by the NDP committee for cheap labour and unreasonable timeline, given that she mentioned only receiving a honorarium as a token of appreciation for her work.

However, when I googled her name… no lei… Gloria Chee is not an amateur hor!

For the benefit of those who do not know about this incident, here’s the full article from my paper:

Mon, Jul 14, 2008
my paper

Netizens slam NDP video as Japanese ad rip-off

THIS year’s National Day Parade (NDP) videos for its theme songs have sparked off some controversy online.

A contributor to citizen media website Stomp, Daniel, felt that some scenes in the videos were copied from a Japanese television advertisement for The Children’s Foundation. He said that although the NDP videos are not exact copies, some scenes, like that of a child painting, seemed very similar to those in the Japanese ad.

Daniel said: “I think this is unoriginal and uncreative, especially for our NDP.

“I feel that any national projects should be original and not recycle concepts already done by other countries.”

NDP video is three minutes long and depicts various everyday scenes in the lives of Singaporeans, such as children colouring, a boy courting a girl and a man running up the stairs in a block of HDB flats.

These scenes are interspersed with those of Singapore Idol 2006 winner Hady Mirza singing the theme song Shine

For Singapore. Joi Chua performs the Chinese NDP theme song Qing Kong Wan Li.

Among others, Daniel pointed out that scenes like those of children colouring and paying attention in class are very similar to those which can be seen in the Japanese advertisement.

A video of the 11/2-minute Japanese advertisement was uploaded onto Google Video in April 2006.

It is stated on the site that the advertisement was created by the Japan Ad Council.

Netizens who commented on the post on Stomp mainly felt that it was the fault of the advertising company which had been engaged to create the video.

Contributor goolen2001 said yesterday: “National Day advertisement also want to copy other advertisement? Shame on you.

Goolen2001 added: “The advertising agency wants to earn money only. Lazy to use brain.”

Fellow contributor krankiepants said: “It’s sad to see such things happening.”

However, pbcjohn79 defended the video’s creators: “It is an honest mistake. Let’s move on.”

But jacksparrow2 disagreed strongly: “I think it is serious as a lump sum has been paid to make that video.”

Stomp has contacted the authorities for comments.

I love the last quote which was obviously a sarcastic potshot aimed at the authorities, as duly pointed out by Mr Brown.

Below are the two music videos. The first one is the original Japanese ad promoting a children foundation:

Here’s the pirated version done by Gloria Chee for NDP:

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Fatty strips to get into Club

19 07 2008

I don’t know what’s going on in this video, but the ending was quite shocking! The fatty just ripped his tee-shirt off and charged into the club… What’s going on man? Can someone enlightened me about this Incredible-Hulk-wannabe stunt?

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Red Cliff (赤壁): Better than Tolkien

16 07 2008

picture via Wikipedia

At least for me lah.

I generally prefer Asian movies as compared to Hollywood fares due to the cultural similarities we share. A good case in point - I can’t understand why in ang moh movies, the guy and girl can have sex then discuss about whether they love each other the next morning while it’s the other way round for Asians.

I digress.

Back to Red Cliff.

It’s damn good lor! Die-die must watch okay!

Check out the trailer below if you don’t believe me:

My favourite Hong Kong actor, Tony Leung Chiu-Wai (Zhou Yu) is starring in it. The director is veteran filmmaker, John Woo. There’s also the dashing Takeshi Kaneshiro (Zhuge Liang) and the stunning beauty, Taiwanese supermodel, Lin Chi-Ling (Xiao Qiao). Added to that, talented actors like Chang Chen (Sun Quan) and Zhang Fengyi (Cao Cao). What more can you ask for in a blockbuster hit?

I watched it with my friend, Melvin last Thursday at the Gala Premiere, courtesy of the my paper movie night event. :) The screening was a VivoCity and I was taken aback when I saw the place jam-packed with movie fans all the way from the second floors upwards!

There was a large crowd, even by the sides of the red carpet leading into the cinema from the elevator

More people… who are they waiting for?

Obviously not the mediacorp ’stars’ who were being interviewed on stage, like this guy, 715, here. I mean, the people were crowding OUTSIDE the cinema, not at the stage. Why ah?

There are even drummers deployed to further warm up the anticipation for the real stars.

And here she is! Lin Chi-Ling in person! (I am sorry I can’t get a better shot)

Once she graced the stage, cameras started snapping away like crazy. A far cry from the half-baked stars earlier on.

Three of the main actors (L to R): Lin Chi-Ling, Chang Chen, Zhang Fengyi

Director, John Woo fielding interview questions

The entire ensemble of the real stars for the night (L to R): Lin Chi-Ling, Chang Chen, Zhang Fengyi, John Woo and his wife.

BTW, Melvin was damn hilarious… he totally KNOWS NUTS about the Three Kingdom story! OMG! I thought he was joking with me when he asked me during the movie, “Who’s Cao Cao?”, “Which is the three kingdoms?”

One good thing about watching Red Cliff was that the storyline so intrigued my friend, Melvin, that it inspiresd the self-confessed “banana-man” to go read the translated version of the classic literature.

For parents who have problem getting their children to learn chinese, maybe you can also consider taking them to watch Red Cliff? :)

Oh, and one last note - for John Woo fans, the answer is YES, there were a lot of scenes with white doves again in this movie.

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Venerable Shi Ming Yi going the way of T.T. Durai?

15 07 2008

Is the former head of Ren Ci Hospital, the Venerable Shi Ming Yi following in the footstep of jailed, former CEO of NKF, T.T. Durai?

According to various news reports in the local media, he has been charged with alleged forgery, conspiracy and misuse of funds and was slapped with 10 charges this morning.

Here’s the story via Yahoo news:

The monk faces four charges under the Penal Code involving two counts of alleged criminal breach of trust.

He also faces one count of alleged forgery for the purpose of cheating and one count of abetment for allegedly falsifying accounts.

He also faces six charges under the Charities Act for allegedly providing false information.

Two of his associates Raymond Yeung and Phua Seow Hua were also alleged to have gone into conspiracy with the Venerable and were also charged in court Tuesday.

Separately, a volunteer from Ren Ci was charged with allegedly possessing some 70 copies of obscene film.

Venerable Ming Yi, also known as Goh Kah Heng, is out on S$200,000 bail.

The case will be heard in court on August 4.

Venerable Ming Yi has been on leave for five months before his arrest on Monday night.

He had been under probe by the Commercial Affairs Department.

The Commercial Affairs Department was called in after auditors engaged by the Health Ministry highlighted possible irregularities in some of the charity’s financial transactions.

The Ministry of Health had said that several transactions, which involved several million dollars, could not be satisfactorily explained.

Ren Ci and 11 other large Institutions of a Public Character were subject to the Health Ministry’s general review in July 2006.

Ren Ci is believed to be the third largest health charity in Singapore after the National Kidney Foundation and SingHealth Endowment Fund.

The Commissioner of Charities has suspended Venerable Ming Yi from his office as Chief Executive Officer of Ren Ci Hospital & Medicare Centre with immediate effect.

He will also be suspended from his executive positions in five other charities: Foo Hai Ch’an Monastery, Foo Hai Ch’an Buddhist Cultural and Welfare Association, Singapore Buddhist Free Clinic and The Singapore Regional Centre of the World Fellowship of Buddhists, and the
Katho Temple.

He remains the religious leader of the Foo Hai Ch’an Monastery.

There are more juicy reports available on omy:

明义被控10宗罪:  公众读者纷来电 ‘他曾做不少好事!’

明义法师被控10项控状

仁慈医院院监明义法师 明天上午被控上庭

明义法师同事友人皆被控

To me, this whole scandal involving the Venerable Shi Ming Yi is making me cast serious doubts about charitable institutions in Singapore. First NKF, now Ren Ci… what’s next?

Then again, somehow, I can’t bring myself to hate the monk vis-à-vis T.T. Durai though… something about the bald head and the robe makes a man looks sincere and vulnerable. I do hope he can be cleared of his charges. Let’s wait and see how his case develops over the next few months.

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My best friend, Mark, the hardcore Transformer collector

12 07 2008

My best friend, Mark (Shithead), and his girlfriend of 10 years, Meiyen, got married on 8 June, 2008. I went to take a look at their new condominium unit at Woodlands some weeks back.

The first thing I noticed when I step into Mark’s room…

His HUGE Transformer toys collection!

He always maintained a keen interest for retro toys like G.I. Jone, Mask and Transformers since I knew him in primary school. Somewhere along the 20-odd years we known each other, he decided to concentrate his spending power on solely Transformers.

Check out these pictures… (btw, this is only 1/3 of his entire collection, the rest are still in his old house)

omy did a vodcast interview with him on his Transformer collection. You can view it HERE.

Power hor? More than meets the eyes.

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Lao Zha Bor’s Rap

11 07 2008

Okay, I know I am a bit WOLS… but I came across the Lao Zha Bor rap music video on youtube and thought it will be interesting to share with everyone as it’s really hilarious!

In case you don’t know who Lao Zha Bor is, she is the elderly actress who acted as Fann Wong’s mother in the Jack Neo movie, Just Follow Law. She shot to Internet stardom when she talked about maintaining a blog called “www.laozhabor.blogspot.com” in the movie and it really existed in real life.

Here’s the original rap music video starring Lao Zha Bor:

Here’s the version with English subtitles:

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AntiStomp - We Stomp the Stompers

10 07 2008

There’s no denying that hyper-local, citizen journalism website, STOMP is one of the more influential Singapore websites shaping the local Internet community lately.

Controversial and loud, the people who loves it swears by it as a daily read while detractors who hates it, refuses to click on the site ever and cringes whenever they hear the word “STOMP” being uttered.

In any case, I was still quite surprised to find a professional-looking “AntiStomp” hate site. The layout looks eerily similar to that of Stomp, except this site seeks to “Stomp the Stompers” and get them at their own game of citizen journalism.

AntiStomp

I think this is an interesting development. I always think it’s an achievement of sort when you attain “hate-site-status” on the Internet. It means you are well-known. At least famous enough for detractors to bother operating a hate site whose sole purpose is to promote negativity about you. Just look around, most famous bloggers like Xiaxue and Dawn Yang all have their hate sites.

I will honour the day whereby someone start a “anti-alvinology” blog. Since it’s not going to happen anytime soon (due to my lack of fame); it explains why right from the start, this blog has another secret co-author, Antialvin - the evil nemesis of Alvinlogy. :)

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