gambitch - now available in blue
Our constant efforts to reinvent ourselves reveal how much we fear our own images.

Saturday, July 12, 2003

Utada Hikaru - Final Distance

The translation isn't perfect, but I like the webpage design - clean and simple.

As for the song itself, the piano is enchanting... And Hikki's voice just melted my heart when I heard it. Absolutely beautiful...

gambitch [ 8:31 PM]

(Warning! Irregular blurt ahead!)

Our understanding of other people often tend to be incomplete. In my case, people's understanding of me tends to be very incomplete, often because I don't tell very much. Somehow, I realize that even after I start this blog, this is still the case. Ironic as it sounds, people still don't know what I really am like. People still think I am some sort of dull-faced and aloof Nestor. That's the me they see; that's the me they understand; that's the me I present. But is that really me?

That is not to say that I therefore necessarily understand other people better. In fact, I don't. In most cases, it is because I don't intend to. Most people you don't really need to understand, simply because the additional information is not meaningful enough to justify attempting to know. In very stone-cold language, it is a matter of making your resources work to maximum effectiveness.

But the reverse is not necessarily true - just because I don't understand does not mean I don't want to understand. There are some people I really want to understand, more deeply than I ever have before. But how can I? How can I understand if I am not even sure sometimes whether I understand myself? How can I understand if other people may not necessarily want to let me understand? How can I understand if understanding is going to have to depend on a certain level of proximity that either side may not be totally willing or daring to commit to?

...

It feels very strange now to be talking about things like this, to make this kind of thought so public. It may also feel odd for you as readers to read this. Blogs are like that - you cannot always predict what people will write, and sometimes what they write are going to catch people totally off-guard. That is the way blogs are.

But in a way, doesn't the blog reflect the way the blog-writer thinks? Even if there are some things that people don't mention in blogs, because they don't want to make everything public?

What of things that are meant for, ahem, more private audiences? What do we do about that?

gambitch [ 8:03 PM]

As promised, a review so far.

We have finally breached the halfway point of the contest. Only five teams remain as Steve and Dave, Monica and Sheree, and Tian and Jaree were eliminated in the past three legs. True to form, Steve and Dave found their trip ending in Europe, while the two girl teams ran out of luck in India. It was a trifle difficult to say the least watching the old men crash out, but I am happy that Jon and Al had not faced the same fate. Nobody has been using the Fast Forward in India, so that leaves a few teams in with a shout as they may perhaps move out of India soon.

Watching TAR4 go to India serves as a stark reminder that the largest democracy in the world happens to be in a bit of an economic bother. The shots of slums and thin poor children with sorry excuses for clothes definitely moved a few hearts among contestants. Which is a very sharp contrast to what I heard recently from a friend, who expressed nothing but gratitude that she had, to paraphrase, returned to civilization - she had gone to a neighbouring poorer country just recently. It is good to be grateful for the good fortune of being born and bred in a place that has seen good growth and development, but when that gratitude isn't tempered with some compassion for other fellow human beings who don't have the same fortune, and is instead tainted with regular and absolutely earnest jibes about how other people are just stupid, I would fear for the future of the place she comes from if one day she rises to a position of prominence and continues to hold such views.

But that's enough digression for now. Back to the main point of this entry.

David and Jeff are finally showing their competitive side and it is bringing results. They are fit, aggressive and intelligent, and they are muscling their way to the front of the pack and staying there. What is good for them is that they are not making enemies along the way. They look favourites to win now, though I am increasingly shifting towards Jon and Al. The two clowns just know how to keep plugging away and persist, so that would be potentially rewarding even as they bring joy to everyone else.

Reichen and Chip are getting a little isolated now, but people do not seem to be having long memories about what happened back in Italy. Nevertheless the tensions are still present, and their chances would be hard to fancy now that they are fifth in the race.

What will be interesting, though, is the contrast between Millie and Chuck on the one hand, and Kelly and Jon on the other. Millie and Chuck are also finding it difficult to make friends in the race, as Jon continues to make jokes about "Millie Mole" and "Werewolf", and other people are actually listening. Much has been made of Jon's joke, but will it eventually lead to a bust-up between the teams?

The significant thing about TAR4, when compared against TAR3, is that the teams seem to invoke less polarized sentiments. People were loving Ken and Gerard (Team Oh! Brothers) and at some level might well have rooted for Derek and Drew (the twins) and John Vito and Jill (the spunky New Yorkers), while Teri and Ian were getting really irritating with their ugly antics, and Flo was an absolute whiner. It is harder to feel polarized about even Reichen and Chip, who have started being a little less nasty in India, and while I like the clowns, I don't yet like them as much as I did Ken and Gerard.

Another thing is how all the locations have been bunched up rather than distributed across more than one country. Several legs across Europe and practically three in India is a little boring to watch after a while, and I would really look forward to more movement across the globe. It is early days, of course, and maybe they will travel to Southeast Asia again in the next leg and get a bit of distribution going on. But we won't know until the next leg, would we?

gambitch [ 12:24 AM]

Friday, July 11, 2003

Those who have been missing my brilliant analysis of what is going on in the world of TAR4 (reviews later in the evening, I promise you that) should be most pleased to know that I am indeed well and alive.

Question: How many people would that be?

gambitch [ 11:54 AM]

PREVIOUS EPISODES

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