Little treasures you find from the deep recesses of your song libraries of eons past

I'm freaking out that we're running out of time
But to do what?
Should I stop and think of that?
Is there something I could do to slow it down?
Live in a day for once
Instead of watch it screaming by

It's crazy how some songs mean more to you as the years pass. For this one, I have to thank the girl who introduced me to this song in the first place. It's been four years, and this song still has a different meaning for me every time I listen to it, every once in awhile. Thanks, you know who you are, because not many people listen to this song.

The uncaring bastard and his mortal opponents

I'm an uncaring bastard these days. I see the tissue auntie at Amoy Street food centre where I eat every other day. She tries to sell me three packets of tissue for $1 even when I already have three packets of tissue on the table from the ghosts of aunties past. I tell her to fly a kite, in an "Auntie, here got this kite, would you like to go fly it?" kind of way.

And I do it again. And again. And again. You don't even want to know what I say to the uncles.

The stress of work has made me all crummed up inside like a festering cesspool of venomous spittle. When you work in an office, you find that you have several mortal foes. The first one would be forgetting to set your page margins right in Office/Excel or some other damned document so it prints wrong and you have to reprint it. And the damned printer is always an inconvenient walk away where you have to wait for ten other people who have 20 page documents queued before you before you can get the document only to find out its printed wrongly. So you repeat the whole process, and hand it off to your boss. In the rush, you get a stupid paper cut. Fucking paper cuts. Small as hell but they hurt like a bitch.

Then your boss asks one simple question. "Eh, why you never print it double-sided? Waste paper."

I hate to say this, but every day in offices, many trees die in vain. I will be born as a tree in my next life.

All this shit makes you ask yourself, "I studied so hard for this?" And then the answer dawns upon you, in a Monty Python sky opens and God speaks to you kind of way. It is a resounding yes, that most people are overqualified and underappreciated in their jobs. Oh happy joy. Today, a coworker told me I had a degree in photocopying and scanning documents. I gave him my best impression of a withering smile.

The second mortal opponent would be running out of a certain office supply. By the laws of the office, when you run out of staple bullets, the office will be overstocked with everything else but staple bullets.

You will find a ridiculous number of pen refills, office organisers, ring binder files, hole punchers, a pair of scissors that has been lost since time immemorial that you have now rediscovered and christened a family heirloom, the remnants of somebody's breakfast (yuck), your coworkers' secret (or maybe not so secret) stash of alcohol, and that 10-page document you lost somewhere in that mountain of paper on your desk that finally reappeared when you don't need it anymore.

But you still cannot fucking find any staple bullets.

Mortal enemy number three - the Himalayan range of paper on your desk. The range works like this. When you need something, you can never find it. Any attempt to find it is always accompanied by a frantic reshuffling which only ends up making it look the same. And every day, you can only add to the range.

Any attempt to springclean said range will be an exercise in futility, an illusion of cleanliness and order that will be dispelled as quickly as the mirage of an oasis in a desert. The paper range does not just grow, it spreads like a cancer and soon it will infest every corner of your desk, even the area behind your computer monitor that does not usually see light. In fact, in time it even begins to develop stratified layers. If you work long enough, you can tell how long a worker has been around by digging a hole in that range and plucking out the document right at the bottom of that hole. If you don't recognise it, you've worked too long.

Cover of "Breakeven"

Best thing I've watched today. I would say it nearly gave The Script a run for its money but nah, The Script is still way too awesome for that. But they are getting there.

They should let Christina Grimmie do another duet though she's been missed since this video.

The best of xinyao.

Today in office, a colleague was remarking that the music these days did not bring back the same memories they once did. He brought up the topic of xinyao, and I had to agree. While searching for some of my favourite xinyao classics, I found this video, which was quite the gem, simply because of the slideshow within the song itself. If you recognise most of the pictures, congratulations. You have lived, and you were lucky to have lived in those times.

It probably also means that you are as old as I am, but I will gladly trade being old for having grown up in a Singapore where kids still played fivestones, hopscotch, rubber erasers and there were no internet or computer games. The closest thing you probably had to a handheld game was that Submarine game thing at 2:45 in the video. I actually played that thing. I realise now that despite what I previously thought, I had a childhood, and I am very thankful for that.



Oh but screw Sharity Elephant. All these years down, I still hate that pink abomination.

Introducing... Feist

Now, Feist is a singer I like very much. It's not just because she's indie and has a voice that sounds like it belongs to the backing track on Grey's Anatomy. In fact, I watch those shows and follow their music so much I can tell you if a song belongs to the soundtrack of GA or Gossipgirl just by listening to it.

But back to why I like Feist, it's because she has an attitude that makes her seem like she's not of this world, but she must be because she's producing great songs that somehow get stuck in your mind.

And did I mention that she's Canadian? Which makes her at least interesting if not hot.

In fact, her voice reminds me of Nataly Dawn from Pomplamoose, or Jessica Frech from the WalMart song. Evidence.... right here.



The Angry Birds song by Pomplamoose. Personally I think this is like the best cover of the Angry Birds song anywhere. Not because the song isn't worth covering because Angry Birds is really an overrated game that became really big though no one really understands why, which might be one of the more unfortunate reasons, but because this is actually quirky and fun enough. And from the outro, you can hear that Nataly Dawn has a great voice, which is a lot like Feist's.

And then along comes another quirky musician with a similar voice called Jessica Frech, with an equally quirky song called the People of Walmart.



Now, these songs are kinda old actually, but their channels are quite interesting to follow if you're into quirky female musicians who seem to walk on clouds and prance around with flowers in their hair, or have personalities so huge they are their own bands. Like Lenka, Oh Land, Florence and The Machine, Marina and the Diamonds. Okay stop. The list will never end.

So okay. I'm recommending the song "How come you never go there" off their latest album Metals. This was actually recommended by Will Champion of Coldplay, who is the guy who plays a damn lot of instruments (but mainly the drum) and had an argument with Chris Martin and then basically fucked off and came back again and helped to set up Coldplay. As to why no one knows this, let's just say Coldplay is really just about Chris Martin and those guys who play instruments.



Other recommendations for Feist would be 1234, Sealion or Mushaboom. I personally think all her songs are awesome but it would be a stretch to assume other people think the same, especially when you reach a certain age you realise everyone has their own peculiar taste in music. And really, what the hell is a Mushaboom? I have no idea. But in this video she actually flies and prances around, which is evidence right there that these girls are either fairies or they trip on something all the time.



Damn, indie music chicks really get my goat.

十年

年轻时，聆听了这首歌曲，
不大了解里内的内容。
十年后，终于领悟了。

只可惜岁月不留人，
一转眼间，就已经十年了。
那年的知己，
也就只变成昨天的回忆。

人生还能有多少个十年。
十年后，我又会是怎么样，
会比现在幸福，
还是以往怀旧，
在茫茫人群中，
难免失去了知己。