first-world problem
Sunday, October 3, 2010
I forgot which website I quoted these from, but anyway, I thought it would be interesting to share this particular viewpoint from a regular correspondent:
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A Thousand Suns
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Oh man. Talk about causing a stir for all the wrong reasons. Linkin Park's latest studio album, "A Thousand Suns", which was released sometime last week, has caused quite a stir among its fans, with comments that have been mostly negative.
What the fans are enraged over is how the band has made such a dramatic a departure the band has made, stylistically, from their past. Fans who were...fans of the band's older albums find it difficult to like their newer albums, and let alone accept the new identity the brand has been trying to promote themselves as. Fans are enraged over how Linkin Park hasn't stayed true to what made them famous in the first place - which is said to be their true identity.
The beginning of Linkin Park's genre-bending started with their 3rd studio album, Minutes To Midnight. The album was a departure from the previous two albums, because Linkin Park was famous for their trashy metal music, coupled together with notorious screaming singing vocals. Minutes To Midnight didn't feature anything like that, and in fact, it was quite the opposite. The debut single from the album, "What I've Done", came as quite a rude shock to some of the band's loyal fans.
The shock slowly turned into disappointment as more of the album was revealed. The album didn't feature anything the fans loved the band for, which is, trashy metal.
Minutes To Midnight was actually rather toned down, with little or almost no screaming vocals, no rapping verses, and placed an emphasis on the rawness of how the album sounded throughout. The vocals were no longer digitally enhanced/tripled and acoustic instruments were produced as-is with no studio adjustments. The overall effect was a rather quiet-sounding album, a stark contrast to the band's trashy past. However, critically, the album did not get slammed, as fans trusted that the band was just trying out something new.
So, three years later after Minutes To Midnight, we have A Thousand Suns.
- to be continued...-
What the fans are enraged over is how the band has made such a dramatic a departure the band has made, stylistically, from their past. Fans who were...fans of the band's older albums find it difficult to like their newer albums, and let alone accept the new identity the brand has been trying to promote themselves as. Fans are enraged over how Linkin Park hasn't stayed true to what made them famous in the first place - which is said to be their true identity.
The beginning of Linkin Park's genre-bending started with their 3rd studio album, Minutes To Midnight. The album was a departure from the previous two albums, because Linkin Park was famous for their trashy metal music, coupled together with notorious screaming singing vocals. Minutes To Midnight didn't feature anything like that, and in fact, it was quite the opposite. The debut single from the album, "What I've Done", came as quite a rude shock to some of the band's loyal fans.
The shock slowly turned into disappointment as more of the album was revealed. The album didn't feature anything the fans loved the band for, which is, trashy metal.
Minutes To Midnight was actually rather toned down, with little or almost no screaming vocals, no rapping verses, and placed an emphasis on the rawness of how the album sounded throughout. The vocals were no longer digitally enhanced/tripled and acoustic instruments were produced as-is with no studio adjustments. The overall effect was a rather quiet-sounding album, a stark contrast to the band's trashy past. However, critically, the album did not get slammed, as fans trusted that the band was just trying out something new.
So, three years later after Minutes To Midnight, we have A Thousand Suns.
Album cover for A Thousand Suns
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twitface
Friday, September 24, 2010
I find internet fads absolutely hilarious. The way people flock to twitter because of facebook's aggressiveness in promoting online social networking has resulted in a very interesting side-effect: tweeters mocking facebook in all sorts of creative ways.
Facebook was down for up to 2 hours yesterday. With the biggest social network down, naturally, everyone (worldwide) flocked to the second most popular social networking site, which is, Twitter. The irony is that regular facebookers flocking to twitter are people who are looking for answers on why facebook is down.
So, what do the regular, faithful tweeters do? Here are a few examples, I got the best of the best:
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Out with the old, in with the new
Friday, September 17, 2010
...out with the old...
...and in with the new:
...and in with the new:
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i'm falling slowly
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
I don't know you
But I want you
All the more for that
Words fall through me
And always fool me
And I can't react
And games that never amount
To more than they're meant
Will play themselves out
Take this sinking boat and point it home
We've still got time
Raise your hopeful voice you have a choice
You'll make it now
Falling slowly, eyes that know me
And I can't go back
Moods that take me and erase me
And I'm painted black
You have suffered enough
And warred with yourself
It's time that you won
Take this sinking boat and point it home
We've still got time
Raise your hopeful voice you had a choice
You've made it now
Falling slowly sing your melody
I'll sing along
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkFB8f8bzbY
Falling Slowly - Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova (from the motion picture Once)
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Sem 3 holidays, part 2
Saturday, June 26, 2010
My project group have been meeting up regularly for the project. The progress that we have been making is pretty immense. I just hope that we haven't gone off-track in the process. If we did, it would be hell when school resumes. It would mean going back to the drawing board, and that won't be fun. At all. Something tells me that we haven't gone off-track though.
I would like to also apologize to KH for not making it for the first yescom meeting. Really sorry about that. I know you hate me for that. Well, the second meeting went pretty smooth, didn't it. hahahaha!
I couldn't resist, but on wednesday, after the meeting, I heard that ETP (Entrepreneurship) club was moving in to the new CCA hub at the new campus. So, I decided to go to the new campus, one day ahead of my official campus tour with my class. After visiting the school on wednesday, I was so hyped up, I couldn't wait to see the school again the next day, when my class was having the official tour of the new campus.
The new ETP hub is gorgeous. Of course, I went around the campus to explore what it had in store for us. The new campus is really nothing short of amazing - it isn't only as good as it looks. I think the roof garden has a fantastic view of the surroundings. The campus is always windy throughout, probably because of the "open concept" the campus has. After seeing the campus on Wednesday, I thought there wouldn't be much to see the next day.
Oh, how wrong I was. When I went there on Thursday, we visited other areas of the campus which I didn't catch the day before. Here I am, thinking that a new campus could only be revealed once.
Some of the places we visited were: the F&B's training kitchens/training kitchens (lol, they have lecture kitchens instead of lecture halls), the Hotel suites for the Hospitality students (which I am totally jealous of because each room has a 40" flat screen TV D:), the Center for Service Innovation (unfortunately abbreviated as CSI), and the Library.
I remember JN mentioning something funny when I told him about the "lecture kitchens":
The hotel suites look exactly like god intended them to be: they look like actual hotel suites. How nice, I bet that helps to facilitate learning alot!
The Center for Service Innovation had idelite (pronounced as I-Delight) rooms galore. idelite rooms are rooms used for service training. They are rooms with a mounted camera (or, in some cases, mounted cameras) which are used to record Role-play scenarios in which students are assessed and tested for their service skills. The original live Role-play is graded, however, I believe the captured footage will be views by a panel of lecturers and then be graded by them, too. In any case, you don't want to make a fool out of yourself on camera. That's how service training in idelite works.
There were 2 types of idelite rooms I saw, neither of which were like the ones at our old campus at Clementi. One room had the ability project, from the back of the screen (using a backscreen projector), a panoramic image, which serves as a background for your role-play scenario. As the image is a projected image, you can choose any image that you'd like to be projected on the back for your scenario, creating a backdrop.
The other idelite room had a portion of the room cordoned off using soundproof glass panels. Inside of these soundproof glass panels, is where the Role-play will take place. People inside will not be able to hear anything outside. People outside can still hear what is going on inside though, as there is an audio feed from inside the room to the outside during recording.
The library, to begin with, has 2 storeys. There is a cafe outside of the library, which is actually a Bubble Tea shop known as Each-A-Cup. The second storey is interesting. It is an area for discussions. If you think that your discussion is going to be a little...loud, then you could book some of the rooms available (I call them loud discussion rooms), so that your loud discussions don't disturb other library users. Also, on the second storey of the library, there are 80 computers for use, at your disposal, complete with printing facilities.
Why did I get my mum to buy me this new laptop again? FML. (well, Clementi's computers were really crap anyway)
Last but not least, we have a full-fledged food court for a canteen. Did I mention that every single location that I mentioned here were all air-conditioned? I think i'm going to have to start bringing my jacket to school.
On Tuesday that same week, I went for my job training. I thought it wouldn't be fun at all (hey, that's the price of getting paid), but it actually was pretty enjoyable. I'll admit: the lesson was dry. Very, very dry. It was long-winded, too. However, the trainer managed to lighten things up by cracking jokes every now and then. The thing is, his jokes were genuinely funny. They were not the lame kind. Sweet.
We were thought on how to serve high-brow customers. How to check in, and how things work behind-the-scenes. How orders are disseminated, which orders you should follow, and navigating around. Basically, the entire SOP (standard operational procedure) was rolled out to us. I'm pretty nervous about serving guests with high expectations of service standards, but I see it as a challenge...
..and i'll take up the challenge!
I would like to also apologize to KH for not making it for the first yescom meeting. Really sorry about that. I know you hate me for that. Well, the second meeting went pretty smooth, didn't it. hahahaha!
I couldn't resist, but on wednesday, after the meeting, I heard that ETP (Entrepreneurship) club was moving in to the new CCA hub at the new campus. So, I decided to go to the new campus, one day ahead of my official campus tour with my class. After visiting the school on wednesday, I was so hyped up, I couldn't wait to see the school again the next day, when my class was having the official tour of the new campus.
The new ETP hub is gorgeous. Of course, I went around the campus to explore what it had in store for us. The new campus is really nothing short of amazing - it isn't only as good as it looks. I think the roof garden has a fantastic view of the surroundings. The campus is always windy throughout, probably because of the "open concept" the campus has. After seeing the campus on Wednesday, I thought there wouldn't be much to see the next day.
Oh, how wrong I was. When I went there on Thursday, we visited other areas of the campus which I didn't catch the day before. Here I am, thinking that a new campus could only be revealed once.
Some of the places we visited were: the F&B's training kitchens/training kitchens (lol, they have lecture kitchens instead of lecture halls), the Hotel suites for the Hospitality students (which I am totally jealous of because each room has a 40" flat screen TV D:), the Center for Service Innovation (unfortunately abbreviated as CSI), and the Library.
I remember JN mentioning something funny when I told him about the "lecture kitchens":
"Wowwtf"
"That's like some cooking show man!" - JN
The hotel suites look exactly like god intended them to be: they look like actual hotel suites. How nice, I bet that helps to facilitate learning alot!
The Center for Service Innovation had idelite (pronounced as I-Delight) rooms galore. idelite rooms are rooms used for service training. They are rooms with a mounted camera (or, in some cases, mounted cameras) which are used to record Role-play scenarios in which students are assessed and tested for their service skills. The original live Role-play is graded, however, I believe the captured footage will be views by a panel of lecturers and then be graded by them, too. In any case, you don't want to make a fool out of yourself on camera. That's how service training in idelite works.
There were 2 types of idelite rooms I saw, neither of which were like the ones at our old campus at Clementi. One room had the ability project, from the back of the screen (using a backscreen projector), a panoramic image, which serves as a background for your role-play scenario. As the image is a projected image, you can choose any image that you'd like to be projected on the back for your scenario, creating a backdrop.
The other idelite room had a portion of the room cordoned off using soundproof glass panels. Inside of these soundproof glass panels, is where the Role-play will take place. People inside will not be able to hear anything outside. People outside can still hear what is going on inside though, as there is an audio feed from inside the room to the outside during recording.
The library, to begin with, has 2 storeys. There is a cafe outside of the library, which is actually a Bubble Tea shop known as Each-A-Cup. The second storey is interesting. It is an area for discussions. If you think that your discussion is going to be a little...loud, then you could book some of the rooms available (I call them loud discussion rooms), so that your loud discussions don't disturb other library users. Also, on the second storey of the library, there are 80 computers for use, at your disposal, complete with printing facilities.
Why did I get my mum to buy me this new laptop again? FML. (well, Clementi's computers were really crap anyway)
Last but not least, we have a full-fledged food court for a canteen. Did I mention that every single location that I mentioned here were all air-conditioned? I think i'm going to have to start bringing my jacket to school.
On Tuesday that same week, I went for my job training. I thought it wouldn't be fun at all (hey, that's the price of getting paid), but it actually was pretty enjoyable. I'll admit: the lesson was dry. Very, very dry. It was long-winded, too. However, the trainer managed to lighten things up by cracking jokes every now and then. The thing is, his jokes were genuinely funny. They were not the lame kind. Sweet.
We were thought on how to serve high-brow customers. How to check in, and how things work behind-the-scenes. How orders are disseminated, which orders you should follow, and navigating around. Basically, the entire SOP (standard operational procedure) was rolled out to us. I'm pretty nervous about serving guests with high expectations of service standards, but I see it as a challenge...
..and i'll take up the challenge!
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