The Middle Years (2006-2009)

Watched Half Nelson at the Picturehouse on Sunday. Ryan Gosling does a fine, fine job as Dan Dunne, teacher, budding writer, and basehead. Worthy of the Oscar nom, and certainly living up to the acting potential he showed in The Believer. I can see Ryan Gosling following in the footsteps of Edward Norton, going the Serious Actor With Good Looks route. Or is it just because The Believer and American History X naturally invite comparisons?

Somedays iTunes on shuffle mode just picks out a wonderful selection of songs. Last 10 tunes on my playlist: Jennifer Terran, “Hallelujah” Velvet Underground, “Pale Blue Eyes” Mel Torme, “The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)” Calla, “Don’t Hold Your Breath” Ryan Adams and Emmylou Harris, “Return of the Grievous Angel” The Ramones, “Have You Ever Seen the Rain?” Cream, “Sunshine of Your Love” American Music Club, “Another Morning” Yeah Yeah Yeahs, “Miles Away” Death From Above 1979, “Black History Month (Josh Homme Remix)”

Groundhog Day! Ever had the feeling of deja vu? (Pause) Ever had the feeling of deja vu? On the difference between camera shake and poor focussing. Top 10 Flickr hacks Debbie Cai watches Singapore v Thailand Who knew Sidney Sheldon had both an Oscar and a Tony?

Michael Pollan’s “Unhappy Meals” article for the NY Times magazine was fascinating in its argument against “nutritionism”. And here’s Daniel Engber’s rebuttal in Slate (which largely seems to argue along the lines that Pollan’s conclusions seem to smack of the naturalistic fallacy). Although both seem to agree on the"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." conclusion that Pollan comes to.

As seen from my hotel room, with Cesar Pelli’s Petronas Towers in the background. The KL sun was searing, nothing like the cool wind blowing around Singapore these days.

Back in Singapore I slept an inordinate amount, and watched the Screen Actors Guild awards (quick thoughts: Mirren-Whitaker-Hudson seem like an unbeatable trio; how lovely to hear that rich Julie Andrews voice once more; British actors always seem to give better speeches).

Off to KL for the weekend. Normal service will resume shortly.

Well, I finally got around to trying to upload videos onto YouTube. Here’s my first one - my Cairn terrier Rerun playing with a towel, back from his puppy days.

I noticed this post on the first fast food restaurant in Singapore (A&W on Dunearn Road) and promptly sent it into Tomorrow, whereupon a nice nostalgic discussion broke out. One of my fond memories of childhood was meeting the A&W Root Bear at Big Splash. Shall have to dig the photos out.

I chanced upon this story of Bullwinkle’s in Bloomington closing, which led to this one of Velfarre in Tokyo closing. Which was an interesting coincidence since earlier today I was thinking about the clubs in Singapore that have come and gone and wondering if anyone’s ever done any sort of history of them. Even just an oral history? I know there was the Zouk coffee-table book but besides that, will people’s experiences of places such as Fire, Ridley’s, and so on be remembered? (Couldn’t seem to find anything on clubbing on Yesterday.sg, my usual source for Singapore-based nostalgia.)

My impression of Joe Rogan improved tremendously when I chanced upon his dissing of Carlos Mencia. (Hey, we don’t get much stand-up here: all I know of Rogan is him watching spiders crawl over others.) Mencia also gets dissed in the Beast’s 50 Most Loathsome People in America list. How does Carlos Mencia get his own show when great comedies such as Arrested Development go off the air? Lord knows.

More xkcd fun. Although to be persnickety “U Can’t Touch This” came out in 1989.

First tme I ever saw a Mark Leung video was on Tomorrow… now I dare say “College Saga” is one of the most watched videos on Youtubemade by a Singaporean.

Wow - this surreal little short film blew me away. I love random free association and here the filmmakers call it “association chain massacre”. Plus, it’s poking fun at Powerpoint (“Le Grand Content examines the omnipresent PowerPoint-culture in search for its philosophical potential”), and that’s always worth brownie points in my book. (Via Presentation Zen)

Inspired by brown, here’s the soundtrack to my life as a movie… but first, the rules: Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc) Put it on shuffle. Press play. For every question, type the song that’s playing. When you go to a new question, press the next button. Don’t lie Opening Credits: “Family Affair (Remix)” by Mary J. Blige feat Jadakiss, Fabolous Ah, an upbeat start to the day.

TreoCentral has an interesting conversation about the iPhone (or whatever it ends up being called) that leads to the following conclusion: Michael Ducker: You getting an iPhone? Dieter Bohn: Obviously. You? Michael Ducker: Obviously. Keeping your Treo, though? Dieter Bohn: Looks that way, yep. I’m no businessman, but I need productivity on the go.

Happened to be down in the rain to eat at the last day at Scotts Picnic. Okay, we didn’t know it was the last day until we got there - but it turns out we witnessed the end of Singapore’s first air-conditioned food court. Half the stalls were gone, including my favourite, the North Indian one (where I ate my first-ever naan!). The cleaner even spent some time talking to me, telling me how it was her last day on the job.

The iPhone looks good - how could it not? It looks drool-inducingly good. And as a widescreen iPod it probably sounds magnificent. But David Pogue’s writeup on the thing only furthers the question that I have: how fast can you go on something that doesn’t have a nice tactile keyboard response?

Man, the new version of Blogger (which I can’t switch to, apparently, because I have “too many entries”) might be up, but old Blogger was down for a while… so here’s slightly delayed links.