Just So You Know: March 2007

Monday, March 26, 2007

One Night Only

"One Night Only" music video performed by Jennifer Hudson

You want all my love and my devotion
You want my loving soul right on the line
I have no doubt that I could love you forever
The only trouble is, you really don't have the time

You've got one night only, one night only
That's all you have to spare
One night only, let's not pretend to care

One night only, one night only
Come on big baby come on
One night only, we only have till dawn

In the morning this feeling will be gone
It has no chance going on
Something so right has got no chance to live
So let's forget about chances, this one night I will give

One night only, one night only
You'll be the only one
One night only, then you're on your own

One night only, one night only
There's nothing more to say
One night only, words get in the way

One night only, one night only, one night only

Great rendition by Oscar winner for Best Supporting Actress Jennifer Hudson. If listening to this song does not bring a tear to your eyes, you seriously do not have a soul. Even if Adolf Hitler were to cry like a cow listening to this song, no one would call him a wuss. And we all know what a bad ass he was.

As I've mentioned in a previous post, I love both versions of this song. Listening to the disco version just lifts your spirits and gets your heart pumping, albeit a slutty way.

"One Night Only" music video by Beyonce

It's just remarkable how a song about a one night stand (I think) could invoke so many emotions just by changing the beat of the song but retaining the lyrics. Just comes to show how powerful music can be to the soul.

I would really like to watch the Broadway version of Dreamgirls, if given the chance. I'm sure I'll like it as much.

Friday, March 23, 2007

Dog Poo Menace

I've been meaning to write on this myself so reading about it in the papers and knowing I'm not alone facing irresponsible neighbours who do not pick up after their dogs, I just can't stop nodding while going through the article. [PDF]

Dog Poo

Naming the fishes

People who don't clean up after their dogs or cats may want to consider other pet options.

I don't have a dog or a cat, nor do I keep a crocodile in my backyard, or try to look cool by draping an iguana across my shoulders. But that doesn't mean I'm not an animal lover. [...]

What I do hate is people taking their dogs for walks and letting the canine treat the world like a toilet. I believe in some countries, it is compulsory to clean up after your dog. (And you thought you owned the mutt?) [...]

If you can't, for heaven's sake, at least make sure he doesn't do his business in front of someone else's gate or on the road.

Now, if I catch someone doing this to me – and no, I'm not blaming the dog – I'm going to find out where he lives, scoop the poop and dump it right back in front of his gate. Let's see how he likes the front of his house turned into a doggie litter bowl. [...]

If you have a dog, you owe it to your neighbourhood not to turn the parks and streets into poop minefields. If you have a cat or six, get them a litter box and don't let them go wandering across someone else's porch, marking their territory. [...]

If you can't be responsible, try keeping fishes – they're absolutely no trouble to anyone. [...]

Basically, that's how I feel about the situation also. Without fail, there will be dog poo right in front of my house gate every morning, afternoon and evening. Yes, the dogs poop at various times of the day.

To be honest, it is only a few inconsiderate neighbours that you wish would learn to have some civic consciousness by not letting their dogs poop freely on the roads. And it is also these few neighbours that disregard the law and health issues by embracing open burning. You probably can see some sort of relation here now, no? If you can't, let me put it straight out to you. They are just plain inconsiderate.

If you intend to provide food, shelter and love for your dogs, the least you could do is toilet-train them to pee and poop at a certain location WITHIN your own compound, and not making a mess of other people's property. If you don't like cleaning up dog poo, do you really think others would love taking over that task for you?

We've been cleaning up other people's dog poo for years and years now. We've tried telling them indirectly. We've tried telling them directly! We've even come to a stage of trying to physically harm the dogs because the dogs have become so stubborn and accustomed to pooping at our doorstep, shooing them just doesn't work anymore. Still, the owners wouldn't care less. The owners do not bother to apologise. The owners wouldn't do anything about it.

Many times I've considered scooping the poo and presenting it back to the owners but I really doubt it would have any effect. I mean, if you hear your neighbours cursing everyday for having to clean up after your dog (and sometimes finding thier foot in a pile of fresh poo) and even seeing your neighbours labouriously cleaning up their driveways everyday because of your dog chose to release its bowels there, wouldn't you feel ashamed and do something to rectify the problem? Which considerate human being would still choose to ignore this situation even after being told face-to-face? I guess there are still Neanderthals living among us in this time and age.

We've even tried some "remedies" and so-called deterrents but they never seem to work. We've tried dispersing crushed moth balls but still the dogs came. We've tried dousing the driveway with kerosene (however dangerous that may sound) and still the dogs came. God knows we even tried diluted human pee and still the dogs came. I strongly believe that even if we would to put up barbwires at the driveway, the dogs will still come!

I really don't know how to solve this problem without straining relations with those neighbours but I guess it would be worth it if it meant we won't need to scoop dog poo anymore. I really do not blame the dogs. I mean, you can't blame them if their owners are such inconsiderate people, right?

Truth be told, I had many dogs once. But we never let them out to poop all over the road. We kept them in our compound. Some claim it cruel not allowing our dogs out from our compound but at least we don't create a mess for somebody else to clean up, no? What, it's wrong to be cruel to animals but it's alright to be cruel to your neighbours now?

Thursday, March 22, 2007

You Know You've Gone Overboard With Qing Ming Offerings

You know you've gone overboard with Qing Ming offerings when you start burning paper Viagra and condoms for the dead. [PDF]

Pfizer Viagra

For the (dead) Chinese man who has everything: cars and Viagra

[...] In the old days, all that the dead could hope for was paper "heaven money", or perhaps a bit of food. But with economic growth, variety and quality are matching the ambitions of China's new rich.

Now the offerings are getting out of hand, with one "graveyard shop" in the city of Nanjing selling paper Viagra, newspapers reported this week amid calls for the authorities to take action. [...]

As if burning paper effigies of maids, gardeners and drivers are not ridiculous enough. Now there's paper Viagra, condoms and call girls to go along? I can still accept the burning of hell (or heaven) notes and paper clothings, and to a certain extent paper bungalows and Mercedes Benz although I do not believe such offerings will actually reach the dead (eventhough some claim to have "seen" the dead receiving them) but paper Viagra, condoms and call girls is just stretching it too far.

Don't you think this is totally absurd?

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Alcohol Jokes

From an email I received recently.

Beer

Alcohol: Here's to living single, seeing double and sleeping triple!

Beer: Helping ugly people have sex since 1862!

Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.

Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder...

A six pack a day keeps the shakes away!

Whiskey was invented so the Irish wouldn't rule the world.

To some it's half empty, To some it's half full. To me it's time for a beer run!

My drinking team has a soccer problem.

You know you're drunk when you fall off the floor.

If you ever reach total enlightenment while you're drinking a beer, I bet it makes beer shoot out your nose. - Jack Handy

A herd of buffalo can move only as fast as the slowest buffalo. When the herd is hunted, it is the slowest and weakest ones at the back that are killed first. This natural selection is good for the herd as a whole, because the general speed and health of the whole group keeps improving by the regular culling of the weakest members. In much the same way, the human brain can only operate as fast as the slowest brain cells. Excessive intake of alcohol, we all know, kills brain cells, but naturally it attacks the slowest and weakest brain cells first. In this way, regular consumption of beer eliminates the weaker brain cells, making the brain a faster and more efficient machine. That's why you always feel smarter after a few beers....

And God said, "Let there be vodka!" And He saw that it was good. Then God said, "Let there be light!" And then He said, "Whoa - too much light."

When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading. - Henny Youngman

I feel sorry for people who don't drink. When they wake up in the morning, that's as good as they're going to feel all day. - Frank Sinatra

You're not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on. -Dean Martin

When we drink, we get drunk. When we get drunk, we fall asleep. When we fall asleep, we commit no sin. When we commit no sin, we go to heaven. Sooooo, let's all get drunk, and go to heaven... - Brian O'Rourke

Time is never wasted when you're wasted all the time. -Catherine Zandonella

There's too much blood in my alchohol system

Remember I before E, except in Budweiser.

Beer contains Vitamin Pee.

You can't be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline - it helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer. - Frank Zappa

Give a man a beer, he'll waste an hour. Teach a man to brew, he'll waste a lifetime.

Ginsing - What happens on Karaoke Nite after mixing fun with Gin.

Cheers!

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

You Know KOMTAR Has Seen Better Days

You know KOMTAR has seen better days when even the most famous (and successful) fast food outlet in Malaysia decides to move one of its first Penang outlet (and for a long period its head office) out of KOMTAR.

For McDonald's to move out from your retail premises is as good as signing your death warrant. For an F&B outlet like McDonald's who usually won't bother opening a new outlet opposite an existing one and have no qualms opening three outlets within walking distance of each other at Gurney Drive, Penang (and probably more when new shopping complexes are developed in the next few years), it only shows how bad a condition KOMTAR is in.

Please excuse the language as I really don't know how to put it more subtly but seriously, KOMTAR is fucked!

Monday, March 12, 2007

Listen

by Beyonce

"Listen" music video by Beyonce

Listen
To the song here in my heart
A melody I start but can't complete
Listen
To the sound from deep within
It's only beginning to find release

Oh the time has come
For my dreams to be heard
They will not be pushed aside and turned
Into your own all cause you won't listen

Listen
I am alone at a crossroads
I'm not at home in my own home
And I've tried and tried to say what's on my mind
You should have known
Oh now I'm done believing you
You don't know what I'm feeling
I'm more than what you've made of me
I followed the voice you gave to me
But now I've gotta find my own

You should have listened
There is someone here inside
Someone I thought had died so long ago

Oh I'm screaming out
And my dreams will be heard
They will not be pushed aside or worse
Bent to your own all cause you won't listen

Listen
I am alone at a crossroads
I'm not at home in my own home
And I've tried and tried to say what's on my mind
You should have known
Oh now I'm done believing you
You don't know what I'm feeling
I'm more than what you've made of me
I followed the voice you gave to me
But now I've gotta find my own

I don't know where I belong
But I'll be moving on
If you don't
If you won't

Listen
To the song here in my heart
A melody I start but I will complete
Oh now I'm done believing you
You don't know what I'm feeling
I'm more than what you've made of me
I followed the voice you think you gave to me
But now I've got to find my own
My own

Another incredibly contagious song by the ever gorgeous and talented Beyonce. This song is featured on both Beyonce's B'day and the Dreamgirls soundtrack albums, two albums with a good number of great songs in them.

I wasn't that much attached to the song at first, probably still very much in love with Irreplaceable. It is called irreplaceable for a reason, right? :P However, after watching the movie, this song makes more sense and gave the song its essence, its life...as it is with most of the songs from the movie. The lyrics started to make sense and the rest, as they say, is history.

There are a handful of songs I really enjoy from the movie but the one I really like the most (after Listen) are both versions of "One Night Only". Yes, both. Most people will like either one but I like them both. One will bring you to tears and another will lift your spirits. Total polar opposites and yet I enjoy them both. Yes, I'm that weird. So, sue me already!

Somehow, I enjoy listening to the music more in the movie than the album. The story behind the songs and the absorbing performances did help but I find that the longer versions found in the album dampened some of the songs. There were some parts of the movie that were horribly dull as the lengthy singing instead of talking really made me want to bang my head on the wall. It's not that I don't like musicals but too much of something can really make you sick and the part where Effie found out she was being replaced and the "singing" kept going and going, I really wanted to put a bullet in her head to shut her up. It was really that bad. Seriously.

Well, at least it is way, way better than Babel. While watching that movie, I really wanted to put a bullet in MY head to stop the agony! The movie is plain horrible. Give it a Razzie already! How the movie received SEVEN Oscar nominations and actually winning a Golden Globe award for Best Motion Picture Drama is beyond my comprehension. Maybe that's why I don't watch both award shows anymore. Maybe that's why I don't rate movies by the number of nominations or awards they received anymore. Maybe I'm just being difficult. :P

Anyway, if you really want to hear this song in its entirety, you can always go to their website. You can listen to some of their songs in full and in high quality too. To listen to "Listen", look for the Deena Jones page. Go now. Go have a listen. ;)