From an email:

Innovative Ads

A print of a cup of Folgers coffee was placed on top of manhole covers in New York City , USA . Holes on the print allows the steam to come out. Wordings around the cup reads 'Hey, City That Never Sleeps. Wake up." from Folgers.

An innovative design on a large billboard in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. It really makes you want that "Heineken"

Life-size stickers of people were stuck on automatic sliding doors at a mall in Mumbai , India . When someone approaches the doors move apart and it feels like the people on the door are moving away. The person enters to find the message 'People Move Away When You Have Body Odour'.



A sticker has been placed on the high voltage box depicting that Duracell's batteries were used. Cool advertisement found in Malaysia .


An ambient exercise to promote Eatalica burgers. A 'Caution Wet Floor' board was placed near an Eatalica burger signboard. The copy on the board reads 'Oogling at the burger may involuntarily cause drooling which may in turn lead to a wet floor. Issued for your safety by the management of Eatalica restaurant'. Eatalica is an American-Italian Food Joint in Chennai , India .



Another creative idea by The Fitness Company. Heavy Weights were placed at various subways in New York City which creates an illusion that the person holding the safety bar is doing weights.

After visiting Kinokuniya at Ngee Ann City out of the boredom of going home straight away I decide to take a walk along the length of Orchard Road and hopefully make my way to City Hall Interchange on foot, where I will transfer to the East-West line that brings me directly home. I have not had the chance to explore Orchard in full properly and note the transformations that it has undergone. I have been to Orchard on other matters but they usually take me through a short span of the thoroughfare. Most of the time - in fact, everytime - I am late and I breeze through the pavement thinking about what excuse to give when I arrive. Barely the chance to take notice of the landscape.

So I decide to take this Orchard adventure. Nothing particularly interesting though, except for some name changes and the increase in the number of lifestyle outlets. There seems to be a population explosion for them. I can't distinguish one outlet from another in terms of specialty - to me the presence of so many beverage outlet is that (1) they are alternatives for the first-choice location a customer has in mind. No space? Never mind, let's go over to that coffee joint over there... (2) again they provide alternatives, this time for the cost-conscious people - which is cheaper? (3) lastly they are alternatives in terms of seat-choice and ambience - "I like cushy seats, so let's pick this joint. The other one has hard chairs, pains my buttocks..."

At Centrepoint things begin to get more interesting. I decide to deviate from the main road and explore the older malls in the Cuppage/Koek Road area (where Starhub Centre is). Cuppage Plaza has been spruced up, it looks more chic, but the patrons who frequent the place remain the same from the old days and don't really pay much attention to the decor. It looks like what Vivo City is going to become within a few year's time...

Cross over to Orchard Plaza: this building retains its rustic flavour. Part of the mall has this huge alley that cuts through the bisection of the building, with an eatery standing in the exact middle. Through an unassuming deviation from the shops' glass panels is the dragon's gate: the tongue sliding up to the forbidding belly whose atrium you can slightly see from below. Making it even more foreboding are barriers erected in front of these escalators - the type found at the entrances of supermarkets and other large stores where the management thinks that consumers are stupid and directions to distinguish the entrance from the exits have to be provided.

At Plaza Singapura I decide to cross the road to visit Istana Park. It's been about ten years since it was first built but the place doesn't reek of age. There's something about structures built in the last two decades of the last century - time zips past and they still maintain their youthful vigour. Or perhaps it's the regular visits to the beauty parlour? Changi Airport, for one, has certainly taken to the ads. Terminal One is so unrecognisable from its stoid past, when it was first built.

Here I decide to take photos. I'm so sorry that I have been unable to take pictures of Cuppage and Orchard Plazas - the backyards of Orchard Road - for I fear the presence of a camera might invite the wrong sort of trouble...

The "floating" restaurant Giraffe



Somebody's garden? Still Istana Park. Boy if I were rich and had landed property I'd construct this kind of garden in my house. It has the foresty charm, but not that hated dense forest that we guys have to bash through while wearing green.


Urban meets nature: the portal to another world. Someone has gone in! See he parked his bicycle just outside the gateway.



The new tunnel that they sacrificed the old National Library building for. Looks like the Ten Courts of Hell thing they used to have at Paya Lebar... anyway it's instant hell if you try to walk into that thing...



Same pic, but this time focus on that slightly-off-horizontal white line through the midsection of the picture. Are your eyes playing tricks on you?


The breeze was blowing and creating ripples. Darn I should have taken this as a video instead.


The huge structure in the centre of the Park that has a secret agenda: to hang national flags. That's its contribution to nation-building.



The best-looking construction crane I've ever seen...


The ripples on the water. Again should have taken this as a video.


This is a bad shot. Look on the brighter side: it's like an impressionist painting

Unforunately I couldnt' complete the foot journey to City Hall as I am due home already, so I take the train from Dhoby Ghaut instead. I would have liked to walk along Stamford Road, past the dragon's mouth, the church, the YMCA and the new National Museum.

Another time then.

Helping my friend Shaiful to spread the word:

http://www.yellowchairproductions.com/

This sign spotted on a ground floor toilet at Marina Square leaves me with dismay.

It is harsh and arrogant.

Of course you want to uphold your image, but this is not the way to do it. You could:

(1) brief your guys behind closed doors that they have to use the staff toilet, and anyone caught using the public toilets would be penalised, unless one has a very valid reason such as severe diarrhoea that the staff toilet is out of reach;

(2) a second sign warning against the wearing of safety helmets and dirty boots into the toilet, and this sign should be placed next to the entrance of the male toilet (since construction workers are more often than not guys) to remind them.

Such reminders are done subtlety in other public places. At the entrance to the hotels within the same complex, there are signs on the glass doors leading to the hotel complex gently reminding: “guests must be appropriately dress.” On the entrances of banks there are symbols of sunglasses and crash helmets slashed - they are not to be worn into the premises. It doesn’t SCREAM at you. Clubs state: “Non-members are not allowed to use the facilities.” They don’t care about your economic status or your educational level or whatsoever distinguishing factors. As long as you don’t have a membership with the club, sorry, you can’t use what’s provided. These establishments employ face-saving gestures that are kind or neutral. The problem with the toilet sign is that it is demanding, and it targets a specific group within the mass of different people of different professions from different walks of life. It is not like, say, a school, where the Staff Lounge may explicitly state: “Students are not allowed.” Fine, because it’s a place where there are only a few categories of people within a compound where entry is limited. A shopping mall is a public space. Still if they want to limit people in certain areas, the signage could be less demanding and more amiable.

Platoon 3 gathering at Marina South, 26 January 2007

The Simple Joys of Lerner and Loewe at the Esplanade Concourse. This is the second night (when the majority of the folks wore red shirts)

L-R: me at the piano; performing are Hawk and Si Ying. Behind are Michelle Teo (hidden behind Hawk), Gavin, Michelle Loh and Eu Jin.

Thanks to Benson for taking this pic! :D

Hi friends, me and some friends will be performing at the Esplanade next Wednesday and Thursday (24 & 25 January) at the Esplanade Concourse.

Death is a shock when you are unprepared for it. It is an even bigger blow when it is someone you know, whether closely, or through acquaintance. At least there is some kind of relationship.

The death of A/P Ananda Rajah hit me this way.

He was one of my lecturers for the Singapore Society course. I’ve seen him on three occasions, the final being the exam where I sat on the second row from the invigilators’ table.

But the death hit hard, because we had a lecturer-student relationship, even though he wasn’t my tutor. And he was a sprightly man, still well.

And he goes so abruptly like that.

You can prepare for the death of a terminally ill person, because the doctor has forewarned you, “He/She has not much time to live.” And so you can prepare yourself mentally.

You can prepare for the death of a person who has lived past the age of hundred, because his/her body is gradually wearing out and will eventually lose its function.

Signs of illness and gradual weakness signal the impending end.

But for a seemingly healthy person to go – and being someone I know – it is like being struck on the head by an apple, like how Newton experienced it. He never saw it coming. It came, hit him, and he received that impact of realisation.

I felt exactly the same way two years ago when SSG Lim Poh Keng died in a motorbike accident. Sergeant Lim had brought our section on one of the insertions into the Bruneian jungle when we when there to cut trees to expand the landing sites for the Air Force helicopters. During the 46 days there everyone developed friendships with one another – the commander-men barrier eroded and was sometimes swept under the carpet, at least out in the field. When Sergeant Lim passed on from a motorbike accident, even us who hadn’t been under him prior to Brunei went to pay their respects as well, because he had left a mark on us through our interactions in Brunei. He is someone we conversed with and gradually got to know. When I received news that he had passed on, immediately images of him when he was still alive flashed through my mind. There is the conflict of watching the dead body with the movie in the mind of him still alive.

We should learn let go of people we know when they are near their impending end, but how do we let go when they go suddenly without any final warning? How do we prepare ourselves?

The Pipilanders are at Marina South celebrating Benson's birthday. Here are some of the pictures taken with Benson's camera.

What does your CD collection say about you? Quite alot, apparently, as a University of Leicester study comparing people's musical tastes to their lifestyles discovered.


Fans of musicals: have longest-lasting relationships


Opera: most likely to have a PhD


Blues: biggest smokers


Dance: take the most holidays


Indie: most environmentally conscious


Hip hop: most likely to have been arrested


And finally: seven percent of Disco fans are retirees.




Aug speaks: Okay, so what about jazz and classical music?

TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED
Tiger Tales, November/December/January 2007 issue, p8

Renaissance woman, Alison Jean Lester, is a communications consultant who has provided training to CNBC and McDonalds; a comedian with Singapore’s Madhatters Comedy Company, a mother of two and author of a brand-new book Locked Out, a collection of stories based on the Asian cities she’s lived in over the last 15 years. Based in Singapore now, she picks her top five most unexpected features of the Lion City.

1. People hang their colostomy bag on trees.
Well, alright, that’s just what it looks like. It’s actually coffee and tea which is sold at the local kopitiam in clear plastic bags which come with a handy drawstring, not just for carrying out but for depositing on a branch, a doorknob or a drawer handle.

2. It’s freezing cold in Singapore.
Offices, cinemas, theatres and libraries are air-conditioned to an arctic degree. Most women go to work or head out for the evening with a pashmina shawl or cardigan.

3. There are no napkins at Singaporean hawker centres.
Noodles come alive, chilli sauce splashes. Make sure you carry tissue packs with you at all times.

4. As long as Singapore is not fully paved over, the jungle reigns supreme.
Where there is jungle, there are reptiles. The most beautiful places to live here are surrounded by jungle, and therefore by reptiles. Step carefully.

5. Finally, the sheer rebelliousness of Singaporeans… on escalators
A campaign has been undertaken to encourage Singaporeans to stand on the left, to allow people to walk on the right, but they simply won’t obey!

So what’s in store for this year?

Study harder (as everyone nags)

Be more socially active (but it’s hard because I’ve lost touch with everything that when I meet someone I have nothing to say. I feel pressured travelling with one person because I am forced to think on my feet to make small talk)

Take lesser projects

Become a better artiste – in composition, arrangement and piano

Learn more songs – expand my jamming repertoire, whether in musical theatre, pop etc

Prepare portfolio and admission for Berklee College of Music (much better if I can screw off from that dreadful Kent Ridge Camp earlier)

Be a better composer and arranger and do Dr Casteels and those who support me proud

Exercise more (only because I need to pass the stupid IPPT)

Sleep more (maybe wait until reservist first lah)

Stop eating at the wrong times

Act on my abovementioned resolutions (which I most probably won’t… I’m listing them out to rid my guilt)

* * *

Nevertheless musically there are pretty interesting projects coming up. Those confirmed are:

-Joshua’s Esther (arranger)
-Dwayne’s Esther (arranger)
-Shaiful’s Chronicles of Maria
-Scrawl Studios’ Milly and Molly (carried forth from last year)
-Scrawl Studios’ Gizmos (working with Mike)
-Soracco debut album (composer/arranger/writer of bad lyrics)
-Kevin’s debut album (arranger)
-Lesser-Sung Broadway (pianist)
-Roses and Hello (arranger – to finish up the job as promised)

See what else people want to give me.