Whose Job

Found this interesting stuff in the EM lab this morning, an article titled Whose Job

This is a story about four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody and Nobody. There was an important job to be done and Everybody was sure that Somebody will do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it. Somebody got angry about that, because it was Everybody's job. Everybody thought Anybody would do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn't do it, ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done.

Forbidden

"As One Tale Ends" from The Forbidden Kingdom OST



~first on mid-Autumn~
~second on pre-Deepavali~

Piano Concerto Extravaganza

NUS music school students really did a great performance yesterday, and many of the pieces performed are my favourite piano concertos, like Chopin No.1 and Rachmaninov No.2. Too bad there was only movement 1 of Chopin Piano Concerto No.1, and I like movement 3 more. But still, the mvt1 was very well played. It's sis's favourite, too bad she couldn't come ha. And I think the best piece in the concert would be Rachmaninov's piano concerto No.2 especially movement 3. No better word to describe it, and I think I almost float when the pianist was performing the piece.

Enjoy the movement 3 of Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No. 2



Piano Concerto Extravaganza 14 Oct 2008

Bach Concerto in D minor I. Allegro risoluto
Chopin Concerto No.2 in F minor, Op. 21. II. Larghetto
Chopin Fantasie on Polish Airs, Op. 13
Rachmaninov Concerto No. 2 in C minor. II. Adagio sostenuto
Rachmaninov Concerto No. 2 in C minor. III. Allegro scherzando
Beethoven Concerto No. 3 in C minor. I. Allegro con brio
Chopin Concerto No. 1 in E minor. I. Allegro maestoso
Rachmaninov Concerto No. 1 in F# minor. III. Allegro vivace
Prokofiev Concerto NO. 3 in C major. III. Allegro ma non troppo

凉皮 (Cold skin)

Today just had this kind of weird food called 凉皮. When the lab people mentioned about it to me, I don't understand a thing. I asked: which 'liang', which 'pi', and also asked is it meat or vegetable, lol. And so they decided to order it from outside (a chinese restaurant), and had it as lunch today.

And so Yanbing went out to get our order (they can deliver to any MRT station), and when I first see the 凉皮, the first thing that comes into my mind is: isn't it Hor Fun???

But of course it's not (but really looks similar). From what I know from them, 凉皮 is very common 小吃 in China, and they like it very much. It's made from flour (if i'm not wrong lol) and added with special source (they mention about 7 ingredients, but I only remember vinegar), and cucumber, bean sprout, and chili. Also, as the name implies, it is somewhat cold when taken.

Most importantly, it tastes good. But it become very sour when almost finishing. I think I din mix the source well. I told them I 越吃越酸, Yong Ming replied: ah, 你越吃越爽?!! lol. But all of them really 越吃越爽, they can finish everything, including the source.


Me and Chun Xia


Me and Bao Yun


Bao Yun, Me, Yanbing, Lei Ya, Yong Ming, Chun Xia

TV series

The Clone Wars


Latest in star wars franchise, but this time it's in 3D animation showing every week started from last Friday. Story takes place in between the movie Episode II and III. Nice add-on to the star wars series, but this animation is more for the children. Anyway I still like it a lot. (as long as it's star wars XD)

~Watch it if you are star wars fans, if you are not, hmm, probably no ha~



Battlestar Galactica



It's about the rebellion of cybernetic race (created by human themselves) called Cylon, and after the sneak attack of Cylon on the human colonies, human flew into the space in spacecraft, trying to find new habitable planet while resisting and escaping from Cylon's constant attack. The best thing about this series is that, there are tonnes of surprises, and there are suspenses at the end of almost all the episodes. You can't stop watching it, one episode after another.

There are 4 seasons so far, and the next coming episode will be released next year January.

~One of the best series, you can't stop watching it once you start, ha~



Heroes



My favourite show among all. Just watched the first few episodes of the new season 3 (started since 2-3 weeks ago), and it's good. Still as good as previous season, if not better. One thing i dislike about the plot is that Peter keep messing with the time, the past and the future, confusing, and annoying. Nice thing in this new season include: Suresh's becoming, the reveal of Angela Petrelli's ability finally, and there are so many unexplained things now like the appearance of the old man (whose ability is to bring back others' life), fate of Claire (is she becoming villain), and the yet another Jessica's appearance.

Terminator: Sarah Connor's Chronicle



Prison Break



It's season 4 now, and after a few episodes, I think this series is really getting boring. Too much expectation maybe, because season 1 was so good.

Reset (Okami)

~if only we could reset something in our life~

Axis (and Spin)

Axis is the sequel to the science fiction novel Spin by Robert Charles Wilson. Just finished Axis, and actually quite disappointed with the plot because I thought Spin was so great and so should the sequel Axis be. XD
Spin is about the Earth get enveloped by an invisible membrane placed by unknown entity (which later named Hypothetical in the novel) and the effect of the membrane is that, for every second passes on Earth (within the membrane), that is around 3 years passing outside the membrane. So 1 Earth year = ~100 millions years outside. The immediate danger is that within less than 100 years, the solar system will age many billion of years, and the sun will expand and destroy the Earth. The rest of the book focus mainly on the people's response for this phenomenon, called spin, and how they response to it. One interesting aspect worth mentioned is that they tried to seed the Mars with DNA, microorganisms, and information of evolution, hoping that with the accelerating time outside the Earth, the life on Mars could evolve further than Earth, advance enough to be able to understand Spin and solve the problem. By the end of this novel, there is this gate called the Arc built by the alien on Earth, which link the Earth to another habitable planet. The story ends with the protagonists passing through the Arc, entering to the 'another world' which they call Equatorial.

Axis's plot centers on events occurs on Equatorial, with new protagonists. I think Axis is generally quite boring because of the dragging part of the story between Lise, Turk and Brian. Good part (which I believe is also the main theme of Axis) is that the Hypotheticals matter is given highlight in this novel, which solves a lot of mysteries carried over from the first book Spin. Many parts of the novel are insignificant and left unexplained (like the flowers born from the ash part) and sometimes I find it difficult to understand. Probably why I couldn't enjoy this novel I think, ha. Similar to the ending of Spin, in Axis, there is another new Arc in Equatorial, and something about everything get sucked into it, into the central vortex. Since the 3rd to be released novel of this series is titled Vortex, I guess it will be about what's happening in the Vortex, with another new set of protagonists probably.

Spin: Highly recommended if you like astronomy, evolution, end-of-the-world theme.

Axis: If you like Spin, there is no reason why you don't read the sequel, lol XD