Membership has its Priviledges
If you are a convicted felon for a capital crime in Poland, you should thank the European Union. Again.
Recently, the Polish Parliament voted 198 to 194 to keep the death penalty buried. Abolished in Nineteen Ninety Seven, this was done to meet human rights standards and qualify for membership into the E.U.
However following a series of recent high profile murders, the right-wing Law and Justice parties motioned that a referendum be held regarding its resurrection.
Encouraged with surveys showing that seventy-seven percent of Poles favor the reinstatement of capital punishment, the two parties were pretty sure that their motion would be passed.
Unfortunately too, given that this was slapped down by the slimmest of margins, it is unlikely that another will be called any time soon.
For convicted felons formerly on death-row, this has been another near-death experience.
Then come Here...
"I look haggard." I say as I see my reflection in the mirror.
"Yes. And thin too." She observes.
"And you know why?" I ask.
"Because you run too much. And you stay up with me online till the wee hours of the morning." She replies.
"Yeah, you're up bright from having slept your fill the night before while I'm to get up six or seven hours later. Sometimes less. I'm so tired." I say.
"Then come here. Come lie down with me." She comforts.
Something Sublime
It's one thirty in the office and the usual hustle and bustle have left for lunch.
Just outside my window, looking at the pouring rain brings a sense of tranquility. But it is really the work of Bach's
French Suites filling the air that sets a mood that is serene and sublime.
There is mathematical precision in all of Bach's compositions, especially with his solo works for
violin,
cello and
piano.
Books have been written on the subject by mathematicians and musicologists alike. No doubt that Bach Senior was trying to work around the technical limitations in keyboard instruments of the period. In doing so, he infused his works with qualities that would be used today to aid learning, settle the mind and inspire.
Briefly looking back on the days when Jenny and I would spend some Saturday or Sunday just listening, Bach brings tranquility to the thunder and rain. A brief respite before the long haul for the rest of the work day.
What a Bloody mad Rush!
Working feverishly to put stops in all the pending holes before going home for two weeks, I'm sitting here in my office when everyone else has gone home. And that's with the exception of right-now as I'm typing this.
But a little quiet is best when you become tired of the noisy distraction that is so pervasive during working hours. In fact some of my best writing comes during the wee hours of the morning. So here is a night person blogging when everyone should be at home with their families. Or doing work for that matter.
This time around will be significant because I'll be having two friends over. Jon will be conducting some business, while Claire will be performing her first gig.
So in spite of the tumble and hussle, Claire and I will be making the Indian-Pacific Golden Kangeroo hop all the way from Perth to Melbourne. A chance to see end and middle Australia is just what Dr. Kick-Back ordered.
Trading Places
Last night, I tossed my internet-downloaded tracks of
Internationalist by
Powderfinger. Taking delivery of this illusive disc at long last completes my collection of the band's commercial discography.
I didn't warm up to Powderfinger immediately when they released
Internationalist in Nineteen Ninety Eight. Effectively their break-through album,
Triple-M would play their songs to death while I'd be driving to work in the morning.
So until last night, I had only a few cheesy sounding MP3s from the album in my possession.
Odyssey Number Five and
Vulture Street had long since made up the shortfall.
Settling down to re-visit these tracks in their original glory, I found a few gems that were, for some reason, overlooked by the Top 40 and Chart-Buster programmers.
The Day You Come,
I Don't Want To Be Left Out and
Good-Day Ray were definitely well-worn favorites. None the less, the level of instrumentation betrayed the amount of effort that went into the album. Coming out from grossly inadequate MP3s, listening to these songs again was a re-discovery of the road that brought Powderfinger to where they are today.
Trading Places is one such gem. Peeling away the layers, you can pick out the organ pedals and piano behind the strings and woodwinds. A haunting song about betrayal and accountability, its any wonder why this wasn't released as a single. But then again, the real gems seldom are.
Performing Acrobats
Coming out from a musicially inundating weekend, I was rather uninspired about starting the week in the office. Fortunately
Adobe Acrobat version Six Professional came to my rescue and I spent Monday learning about it over delicious fried beef kuay teow at
The Deck.
Being an Acrobat junkie since version Five, version Six provides many
enhancements in the creation and editing of .pfd documents. Gone is the tedious and time consuming task of Distilling individual files before being able to combine them into a single .pdf document.
Full-featured for
Macintosh and
Windows, long-time Acrobaticians are most pleased with the beefed-up editing and cropping tools, highlighting stamps and built-in OCR. This version even allows embedding of
QuickTime and
WMA media clips into the document.
One complaint however is the time taken to launch the application. As any Photoshoper and Illustrator would tell you, the time taken to do a full load would depend on the number of plug-ins you have installed. Adobe is listening and they hope to address this issue in version Seven, due in Two Thousand and Five.
Three Strikes and you're Ouch!
MRT rides can be as entertaining as the next reality television show.
On my way to the Esplanade earlier this evening, a young family boarded my train from one of the above-ground stations. A father and mother in their early thirties with their three year-old daughter. Looking like everyone else, they moved into the middle of the aisle as all the seats were taken. Nobody batted an eye-lid and nobody cared.
The daughter was certainly hyperactive and she proceeded to entertain herself with the poles used by commuters. In moves that would make any pole-dancer proud, our young girl would swing in circles as she held on firmly with her left hand. As she demonstrated her firm grip on the situation, our train proceeded to speed up as it entered the underground tunnel.
Both father and mother were deeply engrossed in their conversation about something going on "at your mother's house". Since their daughter wasn't yelling, they thought nothing of it. What they didn't count on was the stretch of tunnel we were moving into. With two sharp bends, it can be jolting for commuters who are not secured on foot. So when the first one arrived, our little girl was jolted out of her circumference and crashed her forehead into her unsuspecting father's groin.
As he reeled in pain and grimaced in agony, the mother kneeled down to tend to her incapacitated husband. Putting herself at face level with her daughter, the young girl was amazingly ignored in the scramble. Left to continue swinging around the pole, any sense in stopping our budding pole-swinger was clearly too late when the second jolt arrived.
You could see the stunned look in the woman's eyes just after our young girl smashed her forehead into the side of her mother's cheek. The force of the blow was enough to drop her on the floor speechless. This time, bone on bone was too much and our young girl was floored as well. Now the whole family was clearly in pain and agony.
For our bemused commuters, the whole incident was over in seconds. But for our hapless family, the moment lasted an eternity. Going from nobodies moments earlier, they became the focus of attention after three strikes.
Fortunately, some quick thinking commuters came forward to tend to the family. Helping them to their feet and pulling them aside, they were escorted off the train at the next station. You can be sure that their daughter won't be doing any more pole related activities for a while.
A Reed and Mallet Affair
So what do students at the
Yong Siew Toh Music Conservatory have to show after more than a year?
Plenty.
Arriving just in time to hear the first notes sound from the Conservatory Wind Quintet, I settled into my seat for some serious listening. The concert was aptly titled and organized to showcase the talent of young musicians in woodwind and percussion who have spent months blowing and hammering away to put this concert together.
Established in Two thousand and One, the Conservatory is well on its way to producing motivated and talented musicians. Judging from how they played tonight, you can be sure that some of them will go far in the field of music.
I listened specifically for three aspects. One would be tonal quality. Seasoned musicians can hit a note or a string of notes with little or no error. The amount of effort would be far less than is required for inexperienced ones. Second, would be musicality. Would these young musicians stick plainly to the marked score or would they put their own verve into it? Third would be ensemble cohesiveness. A seasoned ensemble would be able to play on cue and in-sync with each other. This kind of familiarity comes only after hours of practice with the same group members.
But the highlight for the evening was
Pictures at an Exhibition by Modest Mussorgsky. Originally scored for
piano, I've heard it arranged for
orchestra and
organ.
Now comes an arrangement for piano and percussion. According to Jon, he had built an ensemble of six percussionists around the original piano score played by Thomas Hecht. Serving as his primary source for this arrangement, this was "intended to function as a collective 'percussion orchestra', blending into a single, unified texture."
Employing a dazzling array of pitched and unpitched percussion instruments, egg-shakers, tam-tams and tom-toms were also roped in for the effort. In what amounted to an amazing display of texture and precision, Jon's mini-orchestra pulled off a world's-first for
Pictures. And one of the highlights was the use of violin bows to pull shards of 'rain' from a xylophone. Ringing through the hall, Jon had more than realized Mussorgsky's masterpiece with this one.
Taking tonight's recital as a whole, exciting things can be expected from the Conservatory. With more recitals and a masterclass planned in the coming months, students and those supporting Singapore's vision of a renaissance city will have great things to look forward to.
Don't you Just love It!
McDonalds Singapore is offering a new rewards scheme to keep you well fed, happy and
smiling.
Aptly called
Rewards, patrons receive five points for every dollar spent on food or merchandise. As an enticer, anyone who signs up during the promotional period will automatically obtain five hundred points free of charge. Linked to your e-Zlink card, this is just the right combination to rack up on your calorie count.
Being Mac Users who frequent McDonalds, this is one of the many added benefits of nominating the establishment as a
Meet Up venue. In addition to the convenient power outlets and free wireless access, eat there often enough and your next meal could be on the house!
Registered patrons use McKiosks, situated at every McDonalds outlet, to order their meals. Points for items will then be deducted from their account. Presenting the printed receipt at the counter results in a meal magically appearing before your very eyes.
At this time, it is not known as to what the point value for food items and merchandize are. Or if McDonalds will be offering additional health insurance along with your membership.
