Pseudo-intellectual Musings. This blog contains the author's musings on society, culture and tech, along with the odd foodspot review, just to lower the tone and keep her strength up.
As we all prepare to usher in the New Year, it seems appropriate to look back on the major events of 2008, which has been a disastrous year for many. P’s aimless wanderings around the web turned up the following favourite “Year in Photos” photosites and she thought she’d share them with readers.
The Boston Globe posted a wonderful tripartite series of 120 photos that capture 2008 events from a pan-US viewpoint. All of them are absolutely gorgeous, but P particularly likes this one as a piece of photojournalism summarizing some of the religious conflict of the year and yet holding out hope for the future.
It shows Muslim mourners at the funeral for Mohsin Navqi, a Pakistani Emigre to the US and US army officer. He was killed by a roadside bomb while on patrol in Afghanistan.
From P’s part of the world, comes this shot of the Shenzhou-7 manned spaceship which took Taikonaut Zhai Zhigang on China’s first ever manned space walk.
Here’s a stunning image of lightning bolts illuminating the explosion of the Chaiten volcano in Southern Chile.
Here’s an iconic pic of Obama at a rain-swept rally in Fredericksburg, VA.
View the rest of the photos at the Boston Globe blog site, part 1 here, part 2 here and part 3 here.
Pixcetera has another set of 50 photos looking back on 2008 here. Sadly, they can only be viewed in the Pixcetera player, but P urges all readers to click through – great photo of Michael Phelps celebrating his winning the 4x100metre freestyle relay at the Beijing Olympics and lots of cute/strange animal photos as well. P particularly likes the surfing dog and the peeping seal pup.
Finally, from good ol’ Singapore comes a set of photo collages in a blog post from The Singapore Daily.
This set largely depicts the Lehmann bond fallout in Singapore with investors in the Development Bank of Singapore’s (DBS) High Notes mini-bonds package losing their life savings. Protesting crowds besieged the bank in Hong Kong and wrote letters to the forum in Singapore.
P loves this set which play on radical muslim detainee Mas Selamat’s escape from police detention in February 2008. “Have you seen this man” posters of Mas Selamat in various guises were posted everywhere in Singapore leading to endless parodies on the Internet.
And don’t forget to add a second to your countdown tonight as you usher in the New Year! P will be tuning to the Marina Bay countdown tonight on the gogglebox (see pic below). HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone!!
Who still remembers Dancing Matt from 2006? Matt Harding is the well-known American video game-designer whose round-the-world dance videos went viral two years ago, leading to instant fame, sponsorship and more silly jigs in front of prominent world landmarks. And imagine, it all started with a running (does that explain his dance style?) gag for a friend’s video camera in Vietnam…
Well, P was introduced to a new TV ad for Visa credit cards by a friend yesterday, and guess what? Matt’s now on the small screen with new sponsorship (Matt’s previous travels are/were sponsored by Stride Gum)! P was impressed that the new ad even mentions Singapore! Matt has chosen not to disclose his current financial arrangement with Visa.
When she checked out Matt’s current webpage, she found his latest 2008 dance video which is reproduced below for your pleasure (short Singapore segment by the Merlion). At least, Matt has got locals to join him in his dancing efforts, the more the merrier eh? Matt is now apparently trying to raise funds for disadvantaged children in Rwanda. At least, one web celeb is trying to turn his fame to something useful!
Yangmingshan National Park (YMS NP) is only an hour and a half’s bus ride from Taipei and is the ideal place to visit to get back to Nature and away from the bustling hordes of the Taiwanese capital. Unfortunately on sunny days, the bustling hordes of Taipei also make a beeline for the cooler mountains and some of the easier paths in particular can be swamped with visitors.
After a busy week of campus meetings and intercity bus rides, P was definitely ready for some gentle hiking and vistas more scenic than a conference room.
YMS, for those not familiar with it, consists of about 11,455 hectares of semitropical mountainous woodland, taking in several low mountains/hills, including Mounts Tatun, Chihsing (Qixing), Wuchih, Hsiangtien etc with the highest elevation being about 1,120 metres above sea level. The park was named after Ming dynasty philosopher, Wang Yangming. P had gone with the intention of doing the trail to Qixingshan (Seven Stars Mountain), a climb that was rumoured to take a total of 3-4 hours up and down (from the bus stop at Hsiaoyukeng). She also intended to visit a few of the more scenic areas of the Park, which were readily accessible thanks to a comprehensive system of shuttle buses that wend their way between the trail heads.
After acquiring a decent map at the Visitor’s Centre (itself an hour’s hike from the public bus route), P took one of the park shuttles to her first stop, Erzihping. Erzihping was more in the way of a warm-up for the main climb, being a gentle snaking 2km trail through the woods to an artificial lake. The great thing about it was the wheelchair access – there was a cement trail paralleling the main one that was suitable for wheelchair users and a fair number of elderly Taiwanese were perambulating along both the “easy” trail and the main one.
P arrived at the trail head at about 9:30am on a morning after a heavy rain, so there was still heavy fog around the markers. (This was why she didn’t start directly on the Qixingshan climb.)
The walk was an easy one, allowing P ample opportunity to admire the subtropical flora.
Silhouette of subtropical tree fern
Bauhinia flower closeup (click for larger view)
Fern fiddlerheads
Dewey Flower (anyone know what this is? Click for larger view)
Pines blowing in the breeze
I eventually reached Erzihping lake, which is a very pretty sight, as it lies in the shadow of several mountains. This shot shows the trails in the location.
The lake itself was filled with blooming waterlilies and mating frogs – wonderful!
Waterlilies
Waterlily closeup (click for larger view)
Frog orgy (click for larger view)
Tadpoles
P had a quick picnic Bento lunch by the waterlilies and made tracks back to the trailhead.
After Erzihping, P took a bus to the Qixingshan trailhead as she was worrying about making it up and down before dark. This peak is the highest one in the Park and is a strenuous climb up, quite a change from the Erzihping trail. It is in an area of volcanic hot springs and sulfur fumaroles so the trail head was wreathed in hot mist, making the first few hundred metres quite an agonising vertical slog through a humid sulfur-stinking cloud (P isn’t very fit :-)). This pic shows the beginnings of the trail as it levels out above the sulfur fumes.
Here is another view of the trail that shows its steepness. This is the view from Hsiaoyukeng, another of the way stations on the way up Qixingshan. Look closely at the larger version of the pic and you can see the small band of hikers toiling up the mountain.
P had to stop and rest now and then and often encountered families and other hikers doing the same. Here is a Taiwanese couple resting. The caption on that photo looks like it should read “Haven’t they run out of mountain yet?”.
Still the scenery was fabulous as the trail often cut through areas of raw sulfur and smoking volcanic vents. Here are some of the better ones below.
Smoking volcanic vent
Closeup of volcanic vent
View from halfway up the trail
Sulfur bed (the yellow bits – click to larger view to see it better)
Scenic mountain vista(it needs a period hero posing with a bow or something)
The reward for all that climbing! (fantastic mid-afternoon view down the valley to Taipei city)
P’s legs were pretty wobbly by the time she descended to Hsiaoyukeng again and she decided to take the bus back down to Danshui for food at the famous night market (but that’s another post!).
NORAD (North American Aerospace Defence Command) is embarking on its annual mission to track Santa’s journey around the world, complete with Santa Cam videos. According to NORAD, Santa began his latest flight early Wednesday at the International Date Line in the Pacific Ocean. As P is writing this, Santa is currently off Brisbane, Australia and should be making his jolly way to P’s location in Singapore soon.
Here’s a trailer for the 2008 journey.
Click through to the official NORAD tracks Santa 2008 site to view the official videos and track Santa’s progress live on satellite!
Have you been good this year?!? MERRY CHRISTMAS TO EVERYONE!
Inspired by Old School’s recent Weird post, Pretensions decided to compile her own list of name-changing glitterati. It looks like a fair number of pop musicians have decided that a mid-career name change cum rebranding exercise might help them sell more albums. But can something so superficial really reverse a falling star’s trajectory? Read on and decide for yourself!
P was considering including group names and then realised that the list could easily run to 50, so she stuck to individuals. Her criteria were that the stars in question should be 1) readily recognisable 2) had a significant name change (which is why John Cougar Mellencamp is omitted) 3) includes alternate identities. If you have suggestions, then please comment below.
Some of the following information is taken from a recent article in the self-proclaimed LA gossip rag, the Defamer, and you can read the original below.
10. “Devadip” Carlos Santana
Alright, so this is a bit of a weak start, but P was running low on inspiration and likes Santana’s music. Anyway, Santana’s unique version of Jazz Fusion has been winning fans since the beginning of the 1970s and his version of “Black Magic Woman" still lives on P’s hard disk. Santana is one of the few ‘60s/’70s musicians that has lasted the course, and in 2003 was listed as #15 on Rolling Stone magazine’s 100 greatest guitarists of all times. Santana’s Devadip monicker resulted from his interest in Eastern mysticism (reflected in some of his albums). He became the disciple of Guru Sri Chinmoy in 1973 and took the name Devadip meaning “the lamp, light and eye of God”.
9. Eminem aka Slim Shady
Multiple Platinum award-winning white rapper Eminem shot to fame in the early noughties with his first album “Slim Shady". He went on to become (in)famous for his edgy lyrics with overtones of homophobia and violence, especially his song “We as Americans", which allegedly threatened to kill the President. Famously, Eminem was sued by his own mother in 1999, over alleged slander in his Slim Shady lyrics. This is how Eminem describes the inspiration for his alter-ego/alias "I was takin' a sh**. I swear to God. And the f*****' name just popped into my head. Then I started thinkin' of twenty million things that rhymed with it".
Mariah Carey doesn’t need much of an introduction. The five times Grammy award winning singer with the phenomenal vocal register released her 10th album “The Emancipation of Mimi” in 2005. Apparently Mimi had been Carey’s nickname “only used by those closest to me” and the name and the album celebrated her unveiling of her real self.
Declan McManus (or MacManus) was Londoner Elvis Costello’s real name. When he was signed by Stiff Records in the 1970s, his manager suggested the name change with the Elvis taken from Elvis Presley and the Costello being his great grandmother’s family name. In 1986, Costello reverted officially to his original name, although he is still better known as Elvis Costello. Costello has also adopted the name “Napoleon Dynamite” for his post-punk album “Blood and Chocolate”. Arguably one of rock’s most versatile artists, Costello has invented his own unique style. Listen to his academy award-nominated song “Scarlet Tide” from the movie Cold Mountainhere.
John Lydon has always been better known as Johnny Rotten, lead singer of the Brit punk band, the Sex Pistols. Apparently his stage name was given to him as a result of the state of his teeth and there are a few conflicting stories in circulation over exactly who named him and under what circumstances. When the Sex Pistols broke up in 1978, his ex-manager, Malcolm McLaren legally prevented him from using the name Rotten, but he won this right back in court in 1986. While his vocal career has sunk into semi-obscurity, Rotten has remained in the news, most famously in January this year, for punching a female assistant over the lack of a connecting door between his and his friend’s room. She is suing for assault and sexual harassment. Here is a video of Johnny and the Sex Pistols in their ‘70s heyday.
5. Beyonce aka Sasha Fierce
Probably about the most recent name change on the list belongs to Beyonce Knowles. Beyonce first rose to fame as the lead singer of all-girl group Destiny’s Child, before striking out on her own in 2003 with the album “Dangerously in Love”. She has been tremendously successful, reportedly earning US$80million between June ‘07 and ‘08. In October this year (and 6 months after her marriage to Jay-Z), Beyonce revealed her “more sensual agressive, outspoken” alter-ego Sasha Fierce in an album entitled “Ï am …Sasha Fierce”.
Who still remembers the ‘60s song “Morning has Broken?” P certainly does as it was on cassette in her house for much of her early childhood. The Brit singer of that song, Cat Stevens, has sold 60 million albums round the world since then despite giving up music as a career when he converted to Islam in 1977. He also adopted a muslim name and devoted himself to Islamic causes, chiefly humanitarian work helping children and victims of war.
The androgynous British singer has reinvented himself so many times that P has lost count. Still, she believes that Ziggy Stardust is arguably his most famous invention, manufactured in order to launch his album “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars". Bowie has been rated 39th by Rolling Stone on their list of 100 greatest rock acts of all time. Click through here for a glimpse of his Ziggy Stardust heyday.
2. Sean Combs aka Puff Daddy aka P. Diddy aka Diddy
Maybe he’s indecisive over names, but rapper Combs is a great businessman. Besides his signature hip-hop music, Combs has launched two restaurants, men’s clothing lines and his own label of perfume.
1. Prince aka Love Symbol (TAFNAK)
Perhaps the most famous name changer of them all is pop musician Prince. His purple majesty was famous for his eccentric wardrobe, once being verbally and physically abused by his audience for wearing bikini briefs, leg warmers, high-heeled boots, a necklace of raw bacon, and a trench coat on stage. Fortunately, he was also an excellent musician and produced a string of chart-topping hits in the ‘80s and early ‘90s, most famously, Purple Rain, When Doves Cry, Batdance and Cream. In 1993, Prince changed his name to Love Symbol (squiggle) after a legal battle with Warner Brothers, explaining the name change as a symbol of emancipation from the record label. As the symbols was unpronounceable, most journalists took to calling him The Artist formerly known as Prince as a joke protest, which British journos shortened further to Taffy. In 2000, Prince decided to resume his old (pronounceable) name, presumably to the relief of music journalists worldwide.
Christmas is meant to be a time of peace and goodwill, in the spirit of God’s great gift to mankind, the birth of Jesus Christ. Sadly, in our material world, that spirit seems to have been eroded by rampant materialism and commercialism by way of Hallmark and Coca Cola.
Pretensions was left with a very bad taste in her mouth by the attitude of people at a recent workplace Secret Santa. The Secret Santa idea, for those not familiar with it involves participants selecting people to buy for, usually by drawing names out of hat. There is usually a budget - $10 in this case, and the person receiving the gift does not know who has bought it for her. P’s workplace used to practice a double-blind variant of this every year, where everyone bought a generic gift and labelled it with a number, then it was pure luck of the draw whose gift you ended up with. However, this usually led to lots of unhappiness, since gifts desired by a 30-year-old female manager, might not have been the choice of a 50-year-old male warehouse packer. Since P’s department was left in charge of the exchange this year, she suggested and helped implement a more traditional SS, where names were picked from a hat. To help the situation even more, she designed and helped to print out wishing tree lists, where everyone could, if they wanted, wish for up to 3 items that they’d like to receive in the exchange. The little coloured trees were then hung on the company tree, adding to the festive aura.
During the gift exchange itself, P noticed that her young giftee was looking a little down at the mouth. Not liking to see someone unhappy at what was supposed to be a joyous occasion, P asked what the matter was. “My gift is less than $10", came the stunning reply. Now, this person had asked for a very specific gift mug as her first wish and Ferrero Rocher chocolates as her second. P, upon proceeding to the shop, noticed that the requested mug was on discount at $6.50. Not wanting to shortchange the person, she had bought a small pack of Ferrero Rocher chocs and filled half the mug with them. The total value of the gift? $9.62. This person was complaining because her gift was all of 30 cents short of $10. P then revealed that she was the gift giver and tried to explain things to her giftee, only to be met with a storm of protests and a detailed costing. Can you believe that? P is now considering buying a large box of chocolates and gifting it to that young Singaporean along with a note that says “These are a gift from my heart. For every one of these you enjoy, please ensure that another is given to a homeless person, someone in an old age home, or the next beggar you see. I hope that some day you will understand the spirit of X’mas”.
I found the following short story on the Holidayspot (author anonymous) and thought that I’d leave you with it. Merry Christmas everyone!
Reggie’s brother gave him an automobile as a Christmas present. On Christmas Eve Reggie came out of his office, and saw a street urchin admiring his shiny new car.
Reggie nodded in affirmation, "My brother gave it to me for Christmas." The boy was surprised. "You mean your brother gave it to you and it didn't cost you anything? Boy, I wish..." He hesitated. Reggie knew what he was going to wish for. He was going to wish he had a brother like the one Reggie has.
But what the lad said was far beyond Reggie’s expectation.
"I wish," the boy went on, "that I could be a brother like that."
For a few seconds words failed Reggie and then he impulsively added, "Would you like to take a ride in my automobile?"
"Oh yes, I'd love that."
After a short ride, the boy turned towards Reggie. His eyes were glowing and he said, "Mister, would you mind driving in front of my house?" Reggie smiled a little. He thought he understood what the lad wanted. He wanted to show it off to his neighbors that he could ride home in a big automobile. But Reggie was wrong again.
"Will you stop where those two steps are?" the boy asked. He ran up the steps. In a little while Reggie heard him coming back, but he was not coming fast. He was carrying his little brother who was physically challenged. He sat him down on the bottom step, then sort of squeezed up against him and pointed to the car. "There she is, Buddy, just like I told you upstairs. His brother gave it to him for Christmas and it didn't cost him a cent. And some day I'm going to give you one just like it...then you can see for yourself all the pretty things in the Christmas windows that I've been trying to tell you about."
Reggie got out and lifted the lad to the front seat of his car. His brother whose eyes were gleaming with joy climbed in beside him and the three of them embarked on a memorable holiday ride.
That Christmas Eve, Reggie learned what Jesus meant when he said: "It is more blessed to give..."
Pretensions attended computer graphics conference SIGGRAPH Asia last week. The conference also staged the first Computer Animation Festival and P managed to attend one short screening at the Animation Theatre. Here are her most memorable picks from the hour-plus session.
Monsieur Cok by Franck Dion of Papy3D Productions is an extremely dystopian view of the industrial revolution. It won the best animation award at the Bolzano Film Festival and has a very striking “steampunk” type look – very gritty. It manages to be quintessentially french in an Edith Piaf kind of way – maybe its the music. Watch the trailer and see what you think!
The Evil Twin by Taiwanese artist Yun Wang is a pretty disturbing story on many levels. It takes many elements from modern Asian ghost stories, including the blood and implements it with characters that already look very much like voodoo dolls.
The full animation can be watched at the MetaCafe site here. For some reason when P tries to embed it, she gets something else entirely, so please click through to the Metacafe site above.
Confine(s) by Makoto Yabuki is true surrealistic art with abstract cones, pyramids and circles morphing into parts of the human body, humanesque shapes swirling like schools of fish and psychedelic rainbow art to the strains of a music video. View the Vimeo video below.
Fabio Berton’s MTV Our Noise animation featured four extremely cute mechanical birds bopping away to the music. P couldn’t find the exact same animation on the net, but here’s a link to a similar one on Youtube.
Tarboy by Australian James Lee was another bleak short film about workers being abused. In this case, the workers were robot slaves who were rudely junked in the tar when more efficient models were developed. From their angst, Tarboy is born to strike a blow against evil bosses everywhere.
The Turtle and the Shark was developed by Ryan Woodward of Brigham Young University and does a wonderful take on (presumably?) polynesian art. The animation takes a native batik print and animates the characters within it to tell the story. A trailer can be viewed here.
Finally, P would like to leave you with this hilarious short advert for Greenpeace by Johannes Kuemmel. Enjoy!
Pretensions and her friends have something of a tradition of catching the W!LD RICE X’mas pantomime every year since 2005. W!ld Rice is a home-grown theatre company started by local impressario Ivan Heng in 2000 with the intention of creating a theatre culture on our desert island – they have a tradition of producing plays that challenge the status quo and current politics.
P always enjoys the X’mas panto because it’s incredibly politically-charged, yet usually manages to be very funny and rich in sexual innuendo as well, operating on several different levels for kids and adults like a good cartoon eg Shrek does. This year W!ld Rice had chosen to do Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs, surely a theme ripe for…well, many things.
This is the first panto written by much lauded playwright Alfian Sa’at, and directed by local comedian Hossan Leong, a good partnership judging by the product.
Set in the plastic perfection of the Eternal Kingdom, a land where all the inhabitants are forced to go for plastic surgery to improve their looks at age 18, the panto pokes acerbic fun at a certain nation-state. The ruler of the Eternal Kingdom, the Queen (flaming, I think, played with verve by Sebastian Tan), is 85 years old and preserves her appearance of youth only with creams, potions and plastic surgery. She maintains her rule through an annual (rigged) beauty pageant, which was a huge laugh as all the contestants were drag queens representing various unlikely bits of Singapore. Miss Pedra Branca was most memorable for her lighthouse impersonation (don’t ask).
The step-daughter of the Queen is of course, Snow White (Elena Wang), who is rapidly reaching her 18th birthday when she has to go for her enhancement (the plastic surgery) and also becomes eligible to enter the pageant. Snow White, in her innocence and purity, enjoys feeding the animals (an illegal activity in the Kingdom) in the most deserted part of the land, Speaker’s Corner! She is soon spotted by Prince Charming (Dwayne Tan), a handsome young chap from a neighbouring Kingdom. However, Charming has to contend with Snow’s nanny (Celine Rosa Tan at top screech) who intends to keep her charge away from crocodiles of a particular stripe.
Every night, the Queen consults her Magic Mirror (Celine Rosa Tan again, in fine voice) and is dismayed to realise that her charge will soon take over her mantle. Determined to hold on to power at any cost (like certain aged politicians over here), the Queen commissions the Royal Plastic Surgeon to disfigure Snow during her enhancement. However, he cannot bring himself to commit the dastardly deed and instead banishes her to the Eternal Kingdom’s garbage dump, the Outer Limits, with Prince Charming following closely in her wake.
Amidst the garbage, Snow encounters her epononymous dwarfs, who are really the misfits of the Kingdom, including Dorky with 2 right feet, Lispy (its obvious), Hidey (who can sing but only from backstage), Bui bui (dialect for fat), Blondie (who is not dark-haired like the rest of the Kingdom), Jesse (a transvestite) and Weepy (possibly the only holdover from the original). Lots of mayhem and hilarious song and dance numbers ensue and the plot follows its usual trajectory to the mandatory happy ending.
P loved the localised jokes, especially Hidey’s back story – where she had to sing for the Queen’s birthday but was so ugly they had another girl lip-sync to her vocals (anybody remember the Olympics?). The Queen definitely had all the best lines, coming in at one point with a birthday cake for her(him?)self and pouting that an audience member didn’t know how to blow… She also got to regurgitate a few good speeches by a certain Minister. Even Prince Charming got into the act, wandering round the audience looking for Snow and worrying that he wouldn’t recognise her post-op, he stopped in front of a burly male and intoned “Please tell me you’re not Snow White!”
Elena Wang and Celine Rosa Tan definitely had the best vocals in the cast. Dwayne was fairly pleasant and Sebastian did a wonderful torch singer impersonation with his signature tune (I’d rather be the Queen of Diamonds, than the Queen of someone’s heart). The dwarfs and the rest of the ensemble were a little uneven, but hey, it’s a X’mas pantomime, the audience is usually in a forgiving mood.
This was about the third X’mas concert that P has either attended or been part of this year, so she was wondering if she should actually shell out an additional 40 smackers to see famous operatic mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie Von Otter in her Christmas Special (and this was the relatively cheap seats in the gallery). Well, she was glad that she did.
P has been a longtime fan of the honey-toned mezzo and has caught her Octavian from Rosenkavalier at the Royal Opera House sometime in the late ‘90s if she remembers correctly. She was also well aware that Von Otter is one of the few opera singers who perform crossover, cabaret and musicals very well. Her album “For the Stars”" with Elvis Costello really demonstrated her versatility to P. She has also done an Abba album “I let the music speak”, which P considered a bit of a waste of space, but hey, someone must have liked it!
The Esplanade programme was part of an Asian tour for Von Otter and her band and they are scheduled to appear in China, Taiwan and South Korea among other places next. Speaking of her band, the Merry Swedish Gentlemen, they comprise a set of string players, percussionists, woodwind, a pianist and one lone accordionist, ideal for churning out anything from traditional Swedish folksong to cabaret.
The programme appeared to be derived from her several Christmas albums to date, although P was a little frustrated that the exact programme was not made available until the day of the concert.
Basically, the best part of the evening for P was the traditional Swedish folksongs, including the several instrumental numbers, Hjortingen, Klinga Mina Klockor and Vatten Torbjorn Nasbom. Parts of the pieces almost sounded Jewish in their wailing plangency, before segueing into much more mainstream European traditional music. P enjoyed being introduced to the traditional instrument the Nyckelharpa which basically looked like a viola with pedals to push instead of depressing the strings directly.
That being said, P also enjoyed the cabaret pieces like “Boum”, a sassy french song with lots of vocalised sound effects which Von Otter did with gusto. Here’s the original in sing-along video for those of you are so inclined after sufficient eggnog!
For P, Von Otter’s voice was best showcased in an aching rendition of “O Jesulein” which was the highlight of the evening. “Tomorrow shall be my dancing day” was also delightfully rendered. The rest of the evenings music, including the various carols (Silent Night, Have yourself a Merry Little X’mas and a medley), the Abba numbers and even the delightful spectacle of the Santa Lucia (where Von Otter dressed all in white paced in from the back of the hall to illustrate the Swedish bringing of light festival), was all basically filler.
P would like to leave you all with Von Otter singing a Christmas song (the video quality isn’t great, sorry). She did do this one in the concert and P liked it but can’t remember which one it was now. Merry Christmas to all anyway!
Pretensions is still working on her review of the Anne Sophie Von Otter Christmas Special she went to last Friday, but in the meantime, here is a short preview of "W", the new George Bush movie. Yes, P knows that the film has already been showing since October in the States, but it has shown no signs of being released over here.
Though meant as a satire, the movie has been accused of being arguably too sympathetic towards Dubya. P is going to have to watch the film and tell you her opinion, but in the meantime, have a funny photo and the link to a trailer video. If anyone has seen it already, please leave a comment on what you thought!
These aren't really anti-Dubya notices, they're witty adverts for a Bikini Wax, post-November elections.
Pretensions has taken ages, but she's finally getting around to blogging about her Victoria Peak walk. P had a Saturday morning in Hong Kong before her late afternoon flight to Taiwan. She would really rather have done something more exciting like the Dragonback Trail, but since there wasn't enough time for that, P decided to take a tram up the Peak and tour the surrounding area of public parks, largely for the scenic view of Hong Kong.
It was a fine morning, 'tho rather overcast and muggy. P took the Hong Kong MTR (subway) to Central Station and walked up towards the Peak Tram Terminus, passing Central's selection of super-modern skyscrapers and pedestrian bridges along the way. P always considers Hong Kong's business district something of an anthill of commerce, but everything was quiet and still at 9am on a Saturday morning.
Once arriving at the Peak Tram terminus, it took P another 30minutes of queuing to actually reach the ticket gates. Once through it was a matter of scrambling for optimum positions near the tram doors.
As you can see from the photo, the peak tram is a funicular railway, and a historical one at that, since its been running since 1888. Obviously it's been rebuilt many times since then, with the latest facelift happening in 1989 with the addition of computer controls and new two-car trams. According to the literature, 4 million people ride the Peak Tram annually. It hauls passengers up a vertical distance of slightly under 400m and a total distance of 1.4km.
P managed to get a seat near the window and enjoyed a ride with a view as the train chugged its way through a switchback on the way to the upper terminus. It also paused rather alarmingly just after passing the midpoint, but thankfully started moving again just as P was wondering whether to panic!
Exiting from the tram brought P out into an extremely modern classy shopping mall. the Peak Galleria. This was a bit disorienting to P but then it's quite typical of Hong Kong after all. She managed to find her way out and onto the correct route for the so-called Peak morning walk. This is a circular paved route round the Peak, starting from Lugard/Harlech Road. It is completely flat and very easy to manage but affords some stunning views of Hong Kong. P spotted joggers, walkers, dog-walkers, parents with children, lovers - the people were sometimes as interesting as the scenery! Below find a pictorial log of the rest of P's 1 1/2 hour walk (about 3.5km at a leisurely amble, followed by a nice lunch in the mall).
The Peak Morning Walk
Expensive residences on the Peak
Hong Kong Skyscraper from the Peak
Hong Kong Harbour
Ships in HK Harbour
HK - Skyscraper City
Cliff View
Moss Hummocks
Flowers
Waterfall along the Peak Trail
Poodles encountered along the Peak Trail
Basically, the Peak Trail is a great scenic walk for the elderly or the lazy among us. Pick a clear morning and enjoy the view!
Pretensions began experimenting with the beta version of Windows Live Writer (WLW) a couple of days ago and so far has been very happy with it. She was somewhat surprised as her experience with Microsoft apps and Windows Live in particular has not always been as bucolic.
For those not in the know, WLW is a desktop blog-publishing software for Windows which works with most common web blogs. For example, P's main blog runs on self-hosted Wordpress, with a mirror for her friends on Tblog. Using WLW, P is able to compose and edit her blog posts offline complete with non-broken XHTML links, videos and pics and then publish the lot to her Wordpress blog. This means that P no longer has to brave the vagaries and slow loading times of the Wordpress visual editor (diabolical if you have a slow or iffy internet connection) or lose her entire post if the dashboard times out while saving.
Besides Wordpress, WLW supports Blogger, Livejournal, Windows Shared Spaces etc. The WLW editor is pretty sophisticated and supports tables, quick map and tag insertions and spell-checking, so P's entire blogging process has just got much smoother and happier.
Also, WLW supports plugins. These little bits of code integrate with WLW to add extra functionality. For example, P is curently using a couple of plugins to add Amazon quick links, IMDB movie information and best of all Zemanta functionality.
Zemanta is a great app that brings up related content that you can add to your post. This includes links, associated photos, related articles etc. Besides the WLW plugin, Zemanta is also available for IE7. P recommends it to all bloggers and you can bet that you will start seeing Zemanta content in P's posts.
The end of the year is near and Pretensions has completed most of her work commitments and her concert (pictures forthcoming and yes, it went well), so she is finally trying to catch up with her long outstanding blog posts. Here are 2 movies she caught while on the plane from Taiwan to Singapore.
Is there anyone on the planet who hasn't heard of Mamma Mia!, the Abba musical? P saw it several years ago in London during its West End run. She went with about 10 friends and everyone had a great time dancing in the aisles to the unforgettable tunes of "Dancing Queen", "Gimme, gimme, gimme", "Supertrouper" and other tunes which some readers may be cringing to remember. Well, earlier this year, the powers-that-be in Hollywood decided to convert it into a movie, dressing up its paper-thin plot with an A-list cast including Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth and Julie Walters.
For those not familiar with the movie's excuse for a plot, it centres around Donna (Meryl Streep) an independent fiesty single mother who owns a small rickety hotel on a bucolic Greek island. Donna's daughter Sophie (the nymph-like Amanda Seyfried) is getting married to her long-term greek boyfriend Sky (Dominic Cooper). Sophie embarks on a quest to find out which of Donna's ex-boyfriends (Brosnan, Firth and Stellan Skarsgard) is actually her father. Numerous comedic shenanigans ensue plus enough song-and-dance numbers to stun a Bollywood cast, only rescued from obscurity by the nostalgia of the audience for their favourite Abba numbers.
OK, let it be said that Meryl Streep can definitely sing - she is one very talented lady and P has now added great respect for her singing voice to her awe of Streep's acting talents. Brosnan, on the other hand, should stick to the shower - he'd get booed off the stage of the local karaoke. Julie Walters also can't sing, but is so funny you enjoy her antics anyway. The whole shtick hangs together like a drunken karaoke party actually, full of embarassing older uncles and aunts who should know better, but everyone has lots of fun.
Still there is a certain charm to the whole thing, but why, oh, why, didn't they just leave this as a live production? It was so much better in the theatre and most of the A-list actors might still have their dignity. Watch this on DVD just for the kitsch factor and the chance to dance to "Dancing Queen" one more time in the anonymity of your living room.
To give you the flavour of the movie, enjoy the following 2 videos - "Mamma Mia" and "Does your mother know?". Avoid dancing in public places now!
P's second choice The X-Files: I want to believe, whilst also harking back to a past decade but in this case the '90s. P remembers being in university while watching Mulder (David Duchovny) the true believer and Scully (Gillian Anderson) the sceptic in their weekly joust with the supernatural. She was very glad to see that the two actors didn't appear to have aged too much in the intervening decade and a half (unlike P sadly).
The movie begins several years after the two have quite the FBI. Dana Scully is now a full-time staff physician at a Catholic hospital. Fox Mulder is still a fugitive from the law, complete with hermit-like beard. FBI agent Drummy is investigating the mysterious murders of several women and persuades Scully to bring Mulder into the investigation, promising that he will be reinstated in return. Mulder, in turn, recruits Father Joe, a defrocked catholic priest who claims to have visions of the crimes. Various body parts are found, containing traces of an animal tranquilizer. The plot takes various twists and turns from there, taking our heroes through various tests of faith and eventually leading them to the appalling truth behind the murders.
To P, the movie felt like an extended episode of the original X-files, no more no less. It was great for nostalgia value but didn't really advance the X-files mythos one iota. Even Scully's son was barely referred to and the main plot strand felt somewhat hackneyed and unimportant. There were some great chilling moments during the move, but sadly they didn't really lead to a decent denouement. The chemistry between Mulder and Scully is still great, but it's not really enough to carry even fans through a (nearly) two hour movie.
Don't get P wrong, the movie wasn't bad, but it could have been much better. Here's a clip which might at least illustrate the returning Mulder/Scully relationship.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_c.png?x-id=34bab759-8aca-4fce-b8a2-7b102a329f8c)
Who still remembers Dancing Matt from 2006? ![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_c.png?x-id=fdc74400-a58c-42c1-aca0-3d7df81957a6)
Pretensions is using the X’mas break to catch up with some way overdue blogging, including the chronicling of her day at the 
YMS, for those not familiar with it, consists of about 11,455 hectares of semitropical mountainous woodland, taking in several low mountains/hills, including Mounts Tatun, Chihsing (Qixing), Wuchih, Hsiangtien etc with the highest elevation being about 1,120 metres above sea level. The park was named after Ming dynasty philosopher, 
After acquiring a decent map at the Visitor’s Centre (itself an hour’s hike from the public bus route), P took one of the park shuttles to her first stop, Erzihping. Erzihping was more in the way of a warm-up for the main climb, being a gentle snaking 2km trail through the woods to an artificial lake. The great thing about it was the wheelchair access – there was a cement trail paralleling the main one that was suitable for wheelchair users and a fair number of elderly Taiwanese were perambulating along both the “easy” trail and the main one.
P arrived at the trail head at about 9:30am on a morning after a heavy rain, so there was still heavy fog around the markers. (This was why she didn’t start directly on the Qixingshan climb.)
I eventually reached Erzihping lake, which is a very pretty sight, as it lies in the shadow of several mountains. This shot shows the trails in the location.
P had to stop and rest now and then and often encountered families and other hikers doing the same. Here is a Taiwanese couple resting. The caption on that photo looks like it should read “Haven’t they run out of mountain yet?”.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_c.png?x-id=a94698e7-ee30-4724-ae63-d7f12c5f9019)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_c.png?x-id=2012b172-2796-423a-8424-d602854e6604)
Multiple Platinum award-winning white rapper Eminem shot to fame in the early noughties with his first album “Slim Shady". He went on to become (in)famous for his edgy lyrics with overtones of homophobia and violence, especially his song “We as Americans", which allegedly threatened to kill the President. Famously, Eminem was sued by his own mother in 1999, over alleged slander in his Slim Shady lyrics. This is how Eminem describes the inspiration for his alter-ego/alias "I was takin' a sh**. I swear to God. And the f*****' name just popped into my head. Then I started thinkin' of twenty million things that rhymed with it".
Declan McManus (or MacManus) was Londoner Elvis Costello’s real name. When he was signed by Stiff Records in the 1970s, his manager suggested the name change with the Elvis taken from Elvis Presley and the Costello being his great grandmother’s family name. In 1986, Costello reverted officially to his original name, although he is still better known as Elvis Costello. Costello has also adopted the name “Napoleon Dynamite” for his post-punk album “
Probably about the most recent name change on the list belongs to Beyonce Knowles. Beyonce first rose to fame as the lead singer of all-girl group Destiny’s Child, before striking out on her own in 2003 with the album “Dangerously in Love”. She has been tremendously successful, reportedly earning US$80million between June ‘07 and ‘08. In October this year (and 6 months after her marriage to Jay-Z), Beyonce revealed her “more sensual agressive, outspoken” alter-ego Sasha Fierce in an album entitled “Ï am …Sasha Fierce”.
aka Diddy![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_c.png?x-id=57998d9c-69e6-4ed0-ae4e-056233d79963)
P is now considering buying a large box of chocolates and gifting it to that young Singaporean along with a note that says “These are a gift from my heart. For every one of these you enjoy, please ensure that another is given to a homeless person, someone in an old age home, or the next beggar you see. I hope that some day you will understand the spirit of X’mas”.![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_c.png?x-id=1bd87b92-fa93-48ab-b52d-730603d8b8ca)
Pretensions and her friends have something of a tradition of catching the 
P always enjoys the X’mas panto because it’s incredibly politically-charged, yet usually manages to be very funny and rich in sexual innuendo as well, operating on several different levels for kids and adults like a good cartoon eg 
The step-daughter of the Queen is of course, Snow White (Elena Wang), who is rapidly reaching her 18th birthday when she has to go for her enhancement (the plastic surgery) and also becomes eligible to enter the pageant. Snow White, in her innocence and purity, enjoys feeding the animals (an illegal activity in the Kingdom) in the most deserted part of the land, Speaker’s Corner! She is soon spotted by Prince Charming (Dwayne Tan), a handsome young chap from a neighbouring Kingdom. However, Charming has to contend with Snow’s nanny (Celine Rosa Tan at top screech) who intends to keep her charge away from crocodiles of a particular stripe.
Amidst the garbage, Snow encounters her epononymous dwarfs, who are really the misfits of the Kingdom, including Dorky with 2 right feet, Lispy (its obvious), Hidey (who can sing but only from backstage), Bui bui (dialect for fat), Blondie (who is not dark-haired like the rest of the Kingdom), Jesse (a transvestite) and Weepy (possibly the only holdover from the original). Lots of mayhem and hilarious song and dance numbers ensue and the plot follows its usual trajectory to the mandatory happy ending.![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_c.png?x-id=5add4f01-bb58-4281-b9c2-3d181c10b9f5)
This was about the third X’mas concert that P has either attended or been part of this year, so she was wondering if she should actually shell out an additional 40 smackers to see famous operatic mezzo-soprano 
Basically, the best part of the evening for P was the traditional Swedish folksongs, including the several instrumental numbers, Hjortingen, Klinga Mina Klockor and Vatten Torbjorn Nasbom. Parts of the pieces almost sounded Jewish in their wailing plangency, before segueing into much more mainstream European traditional music. P enjoyed being introduced to the traditional instrument the Nyckelharpa which basically looked like a viola with pedals to push instead of depressing the strings directly.![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_c.png?x-id=e15d304d-b132-49a1-b293-c301c548b44d)
Pretensions is still working on her review of the Anne Sophie Von Otter Christmas Special she went to last Friday, but in the meantime, here is a short preview of "W", the new 
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=71527b9a-f275-4be2-a05e-01b5d9b0197a)
It was a fine morning, 'tho rather overcast and muggy. P took the 
P managed to get a seat near the window and enjoyed a ride with a view as the train chugged its way through a switchback on the way to the upper terminus. It also paused rather alarmingly just after passing the midpoint, but thankfully started moving again just as P was wondering whether to panic!
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_c.png?x-id=485aa18f-f1e3-4501-a45d-c7a6799d429a)
Pretensions began experimenting with the beta version of 
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_c.png?x-id=d1f941ec-63ad-4a79-8b65-5f44e24db470)
The end of the year is near and Pretensions has completed most of her work commitments and her concert (pictures forthcoming and yes, it went well), so she is finally trying to catch up with her long outstanding blog posts. Here are 2 movies she caught while on the plane from Taiwan to Singapore.
Still there is a certain charm to the whole thing, but why, oh, why, didn't they just leave this as a live production? It was so much better in the theatre and most of the A-list actors might still have their dignity. Watch this on DVD just for the kitsch factor and the chance to dance to "Dancing Queen" one more time in the anonymity of your living room.
P's second choice 
