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Saturday, March 31, 2007

(If You're Not There)

I could play all day on the bamboo flute
Every note so crisp and fair
I could sing with the joy of sweet loving youth
Dance as jaunt'ly as Fred Astaire
But the birds and the trees wouldn't hear a thing
Coz the music's not in the air
And it just wouldn't feel quite right
If you're not there

I could walk the world with my own two feet
Go touring everywhere
Take photos atop the pyramids
Feel sakura in my hair
I could savour the wines of every port
Roam every street without a care
But it all wouldn't be the same
If you're not there

I could be everything you wanted me to be
Dare everything you and I wanted to dare
I could build a world designed for you and me
And realize every dream we share
I could do it all but then what's the point
If I'm down here and you have gone upstairs
Nothing will matter anymore
If you're not there

gambitch [ 12:51 AM]

Thursday, March 29, 2007

Back to the YouTube!

I've liked this piece of music for a little while, actually, so I'm as surprised as anybody that I took forever to pull this music video out.

Actually, I shouldn't be too surprised, because I do have the video disc that went with the album. And since I can always watch the video off of that, who needed the YouTube?

Anyway, though, here's a nice video...

Enjoy!

gambitch [ 5:50 PM]

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Is it just me, or has this season of The Amazing Race somehow quietly lost the excitement factor in the middle?

Okay, so Teri and Ian were eliminated in the sixth leg, but the entire leg somehow managed to skip by in my memory, with very little of any real note. It might be because the way the teams have started to leaf out into very clear groups in terms of time, which kinda means there's a monstrously huge amount of disparity between their arrival times.

It does not help that Charla and Mirna are the leading team leaving the last Pitstop, which pisses a whole bunch of people off. I mean, seriously, these mad chicken-heads? They behaved in this absolutely horrible way at airports before, and they're doing it again now, leaning into the poor airport lady's space in an attempt to pressure her into getting tickets for them. Hey, you can't tickets, you can't get tickets. Simple as that. Which part of it wasn't English enough for you to understand, mad chickens?

Or the fact that somehow Uchenna's letting his African roots give him a certain sense of privilege in terms of playing moral cards on white people. I'm sorry, but I just didn't like the way he dealt with the history of Zanzibar as the final checkpoint for lots of people who were shipped out as slaves for America and Europe. It just feels like Chip and Kim would have handled this so much better. That really irked me quite a bit there.

There was a bit of fun regarding the whole thing with Eric and Danielle being asked to leave the plane because of an administrative error, especially when you see Danielle basically melt down for the thirtieth time and say she wants to quit this and go home. I've never rated this team particularly highly, and no, the generous figure on Danielle's frame is not swaying me. Hayden might have worked, but sorry, Danielle doesn't. But somehow they survive in this Race. I do not know why.

The tasks are alright, especially the Detour involving putting together this puzzle that looks like some kind of colourful fish or tropical bird feathers. It's actually a very aesthetically pleasant puzzle, quite the equatorial kind of art with its rich colours. The Roadblock was, generally, not quite as interesting, although always a nice challenge.

But for some reason, this entire leg was just so forgettably ho-hum, I'm not sure whether it's a case of me losing it or it losing me. Teri and Ian's departure is sad, because they've looked a lot nicer than they did in their original season, where both earned some pretty poor ratings from the viewership. They were just beginning to look better for me, and then we lose them. And the worst part is, if we're not careful, Team Guido may follow.

Why are we losing all the old school people? Seriously, why?

And meanwhile, the idiots and the mad stay in front. Only Cha Cha Cha and the Beauty Queens can seriously save the show now.

gambitch [ 1:22 AM]

Sunday, March 25, 2007

I have been seeing this ad on television lately. By using the word 'see' rather than 'watch', you can probably guess how little attention I would really like to pay to this particular ad. The problem is, like all "public service messages", this particular ad has the annoying habit of popping up on television more often than most of us target audience types would really like. And while I personally didn't like the ad ever since the first time I saw it, I have only been motivated to comment about it now.

Basically, the ad is trying to sell the idea of how "family life promises so much more". And no, it's not about spending more time with your elderly parents, but about starting new families. You know, getting married and stuff. It starts with a picture of a man proposing to his girl, and then we move through all those steps that are supposed to follow from there. Getting the keys to your first home (government-built apartment preferred), giving birth to your first kid, going to school with him for the first time, having "family day" barbecues with similarly married friends and their kids... Of course, the final frame has the married couple together with a family of three (no less, must enhance population!).

Those of you who know which ad I'm talking about have a good chance of being equally turned off by the ad as well. I'm turned off because, among other things, I am single, have no girlfriend, am placid enough about it not to start calling phone-dating services, and am not about to answer a government call to make babies just because the state wants me to do so. I've always been a believer of the school of thought that says that people who want to start a family will do so of their own accord, and people who currently don't will not hurry to do so just because the state demands it. What, therefore, is the whole bloody point of this ad?

What I'm also not happy about is the way ads like this tend to reinforce stereotypes and coat them with waffly language that, for the most part, doesn't mean a thing. Oh yeah, family life promises so much more. Why then are so many people attracted to the swinging single life that revolves around luxurious studio apartments and a good clubbing night out? Perhaps it's because it goes down well with them at that stage of their lives? And is that stage age-determined? Maybe not?

Not to mention the fact that, in recent years at least, we have been fed with the public perception that divorce rates are well up compared to the old days. People don't want kids because they don't want to mess up the children's lives when (and not if) they divorce. Maybe it's got to do with the low tolerance people have with their spouses nowadays. I swear, people file divorces for the most trivial of reasons nowadays.

Not to mention the stresses kids face no thanks to their parents. Parents fret over whether their children score 102 out of 100 in last week's class test. No, 100 is not good enough, because everyone else gets that. You've got to be special to be ahead by those extra two marks. And you've got to be great at piano, violin, art, ballet, swimming and taekwondo. But no soccer please, that's for lower-class dumbbells who don't know how to aspire to higher lives. I mean, apart from the whole discriminatory tone to that last line, how does life with children promise that much more if you as the parent are going to nag at them all day about studying too little and watching too much TV?

The best part to this whole thing? It enforces the unfortunate assumption that everything you do has to have some kind of end purpose to it. You date because you want to start a family of three kids? Good! Government approval! And that's the preferred way to go! Er, hello? Some of us date because we want to date. Is that wrong? We don't always plan our lives this far. If I date my female classmate in junior high because I feel the hormonal rush, must I necessarily think about what name to give our kids fifteen years later right now? It's nice if you are so mature as to do that, sure, but must that be the way? Can't you just date because you want to hold hands and go watch countless soppy romance movies? Take marriage and everything after that out of the equation for a while, please?

Yeah, I don't like the ad. I'm not about to respond to it by getting myself a girlfriend. I think that's a dumb reason to get a girlfriend. And if anybody reacts specifically to this ad by getting himself a girlfriend (or herself a boyfriend), please, send that person for a brain checkup.

gambitch [ 4:38 PM]