Archive for November, 2007

The One With Survivor 15 (Gasp!): China

Posted in Randoms, TV Shows on November 19, 2007 by steve maestro

A few years back, I remembered myself watching this totally exciting and new genre of TV shows called ‘Reality TV’. And it was truly amazing how people are totally into watching other people’s lives on camera through their TV screen, expecially when you take 16/20 random people, throw them to some isolated place with minimal contact with the outside world, and let them stay this way for 39 days. And yes, this winning formula is called… ‘Survivor’. (click HERE to know all about Survivor).

I remember myself, as a kid, following this show avidly and almost religiously as it airs on our local cable TV. The show’s concept is simple: Outwit, outplay, and outlast the others to win the grand prize of $1,000,000 bucks and the title of ‘Sole Survivor’.  When the show kicked off with it’s first season in Pulau Tiga, around the areas of Sabah, Malaysia, the whole idea of the show was… fresh. Unique. Fun. Exciting. Nothing beats seeing a group of people backstabbing one another, gossiping around, trying to form alliances to take out the others, watching how some of them actually develop some sort of a fling or romance, and bla bla bla. Basically, it’s a money-generating formula for the brains behind it all, Mark Burnett (click HERE for info). The man who almost single-handedly became the father of all-reality TV shows, with the exception of The Amazing Race, missing from his belt of other famous reality-based shows like The Apprentice, The Contender and so on.

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The first ever Survivor: Pulau Tiga logo. Brings back memories…

And so, the show is definitely expected to generate more than one or two seasons after the success of the first one. And then comes the second one:

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It was still good. Still new, the crowd’s getting in… got a lot of hype and attention as well. And then came:

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…  I have to say, at this point, it was still okay… as in, yeah it’s the same old thing again and again… BUT, it was still good. I enjoyed watching this season a lot in the end. It certainly provided more drama than the previous two. And just when you thought you had enough to swallow… in comes:

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Okay, I have to admit, if it wasn’t for my interest and love for reality TV based shows last time, I would have given this a miss. But, I stuck with it, and in the end, it was just a regular Survivor season. Had it’s ups and downs. Oh yeah, during that time, the whole joke of Survivor achieving unimaginable number of seasons like ‘Survivor 20’ or ‘Survivor 237’ surfaced then. And suddenly, this came up:

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Okay… it was starting to become a little bit of an overkill already. I mean, before you can even finish eating your cheeseburger, in came another one. It might be a good thing for some people who can gobble up their food in an instant, like myself. But to some, it’s starting to become annoying already. But… but… the Thailand season was good. I could not remember why I liked the show, but it was good somehow. And the winner for that season is a former soft-porn actor. How ‘!@@#!$!#@!’ can that be??!!!? And before you can finish saying your ‘!@@$!#’, this popped out:

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I remember this season as the season where the winner is so obviously gonna be Jenna Morasca. Even from day one, it was that obvious. And plus, she’s a model, and a very hot one. What makes the other girls in that show think that they can compete with her? And let’s not mention the guys, cuz they were all floored by her charms. And here I thought, well, the season ain’t half bad. Let’s just put things to a rest… and let it boil down for awhile… but no!! Here comes:

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This is where I go ‘What the !@#!$@#!$!!!!’. Not another one!! But I was wrong. In fact, this is my second placed all time favorite Survivor season. The show became a bit more livelier, with the whole concept swinging towards some pirates kinda thing. What’s not to like, Survivor plus pirates theme makes a good combination. This season ended up on a high when this was announced:

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The all stars season is the best season that I’ve watched so far! It was highly entertaining, highly conniving, and more bitch-slapping and backstabbing was involved. And plus the fact that the whole game was controlled by the manipulative Rob and his partner-to-be at that time, Amber, makes this season so enjoyable. Such a good timing and a perfect ending to end the Survivor series in my opinion, it is, as a matter of fact, an overkill already, having already spurned 8 seasons of the same old thing.

However…

They will not stop… yes I gave up watching that show after the All-Stars season. It was just too boring and too dull already. While some were totally against it since the first day itself, myself, for one came from where I absolutely loved the series until I totally hated it!

And then they went on and on… to some more peculiar locations with lesser and lesser stuff to further torture the contestants…

I’ve not watched or bothered to know about the previous seasons of the show, and it has stayed like this for the past few years or so. Until I saw this on some random website I so happened to clicked on:

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… … … … I asked myself, is this for real? Am I seeing things? How could it be that they have gone so far??? And so I went and searched for more info about it… and this latest Survivor installment is their 15th season!!!

Ok… lemme say it again… 15th SEASON!!!!!

And I thought I could not stomach another season of Survivor after the 8 seasons which I’ve so faithfully followed and watched. Until my itchy fingers went to download the Torrent file for one of the episodes of Survivor China.

And then I downloaded another episode… and another one…

Yes friends, the ‘Survivor’ in me came back. Now, I could not go through my week without my weekly dosage of Survivor China.

Okay, okay… you might be wondering, why the heck am I posting about this?

The answer is simple…

Which is….

I’LL FOREVER, AND EVER…. BE A SURVIVOR FAN!!!! MUAHAHAHA (insert ‘Survivor’ theme song : eh eh oh eh oh eh ah ah eh eh oh eh…. ).

The One I’m Blogging From My Office…

Posted in Rants&Crap on November 14, 2007 by steve maestro

Yes, I am blogging from my office. All the bosses are not around, and we are free to do whatever we want, whenever we want. Pure…. freedom… and…

BOREDOM….

I’m so bored right now. Everyone around me are just chatting away on the phone. Maybe just the one next to me, haha… if you know who I meant. She has been chatting for more than half and hour now, and she has repeatedly repeat the phrase “oh, really?” for 15 times (at current count)… she’s so gonna kill me if she finds out about this…

Sigh… I’ve not been blogging, as in, really blogging in awhile. I guess there’s nothing much going on in my life now. Everyday work, Mondays to Fridays, and my weekends are occupied with church stuff. No space or time to at least go out and have a life. Felt so… bored and sad everyday, as the days passed by. But overall, it’s ok, I mean, I can live like this if I have to. It’s been a month plus since I worked, and nothing beats the feeling of… seeing your hard-earned salary in your bank account! Man… I can’t wait for the second salary to come…

Has anyone noticed that everyone is getting married these days? Ever since the starting half of the year. All of a sudden, it’s the season to get married. Suddenly the guys (or girls) started to pop the million dollar question to their other half. I have a total of 4 weddings to attend to for the remainder of the year, two of my friends, two from my relatives. Sigh…. I wonder when will I get married myself. Or when my peers will get married. Everything seems so… fast these days. Man… I sure hope I won’t get married pretty soon, unless it’s God’s will., hehehe…

Sigh, it’s almost the end of 2007. What have you accomplished? What did you do? What memorable moments you had for the past 10 months? Well… for me, it’s at least better than 2006. I know I did somethings that’s at least half memorable, if not to others, to myself at least. But this year has been pretty good so far. There’s the usual ups and downs, but it’s good. At least I made it through the 10 months… and then there’s November and December left. Christmas is around the corner! The time I look forward to every year besides Chinese New Year. It’s always nice and special during Christmas. The environment is different, the air is different, everyone else look different during Christmas. I’ve enjoyed last year’s doing absolutely nothing for my church (hehe… a break from all the other years), and this year will probably be the same. I don’t think I’m doing anything for church as well for this year. Oh goodness… am I not needed anymore? Am I being ignored now??! Haha… whatever it is, if I’m not doing anything, I’ll probably take a break again (2 years in a row, and counting…), and maybe go off to somewhere for a nice holiday. Maybe my time in my church is up, is it a sign that I should leave? Who knows… only God knows…

Ok, I think I have ranted enough. I’ve been typing this post for the past 40 minutes. And yes, she is still on the line. And as an update, she has been saying the ‘oh, really?’ phrase for 17 times now.

That’s it for now… I’m just gonna spend the rest of the day either sleeping or doing some ridiculous things…

The One With The Hillarious Forwarded Email Joke

Posted in Uncategorized on November 6, 2007 by steve maestro

Got this forwarded joke this evening, super hilarious. Read on:

A Chinese man decides to move to Australia after 50 years of living in Shanghai. He buys a small piece of land near to Mt Isa.
A few days after moving in the friendly Aussie neighbour decides to go across and welcome the new guy to the region, so he goes next door, but on his way up the drive-way, he sees the Chinese man running around his front yard chasing about 10 hens. Not wanting to interrupt these “Chinese customs”, he decides to put the welcome on hold for the day. The next day, he decides to try again, but just as he is about to knock on the front door, he looks through the window and sees the Chinese man urinate into a glass and then drink it. Not wanting to interrupt another Chinese custom”, he decides to put the welcome on hold for yet another day. A day later he decides to give it one last go, but on his way next door, he sees the Chinese man leading a bull down the drive-way, pause, and then put his head next to the bull’s bum.

The Aussie bloke can’t handle this,so he goes up to the Chinese man and says “Jeez Mate, what the hell is it with your Chinese customs? I come over to welcome you to the neighbourhood, and see you running around the yard after hens. The next day you are pissing in a glass, and drinking it, and then today you have your head so close to that bull’s bum, it could just about shit on you.” The Chinese man is very taken back and says “Sorry sir, you not understand, these not Chinese customs I doing, these Australian customs.” “What do you mean mate” says the Aussie, “Those aren’t Australian customs.”

” Yes they are”, replied the Chinese man, ” so me become true Australian, I must chase chicks, drink piss, and listen to bull-shit.

The One With Me Believing In Budda…

Posted in Other Things on November 3, 2007 by steve maestro

No… not religion obviously… but I had been hit by my latest wave of guitar pedals addiction… well, I have always been a fan of guitaring and guitar pedals… perhaps it’s time I throw in more guitaring stuff here in this space. So… here goes my latest ‘hits’…:

 

1) Budda BudWah Wah Pedal

 

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This wah pedal is just awesome! I have never tried it before… but just by hearing the audio samples from Musician’s Friend, I so so totally want this thing! This is different from all the other wah pedals with high pitch sounds, it has a unique sound to it, so much so it’s called the ‘Budda Tone’. It also has this very vocal like wah sound… which is what I dig at this moment… rather than the conventional wah sounds. If you’re asking… is there a need in buying something like this, well the answer is, ask a serious guitarist what a good wah can do for them… and this Budda pedal is definitely the wah pedal that I can add into my collection (s) so far. I believe in the Budda… haha… The good news is… I can definitely get it in Malaysia now, thanks to some contacts in the Jamtank Forum. But the bad news is…it will be pricey. So, Santa, if you’re reading this… please????….

 

Alright… so the Budda Wah isn’t the only thing I crave at this moment… I’m also being ‘attacked’ by this second wave for this particular effects pedal as well:

2) Digitech EX-7 Expression Factory

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Yet another baby… yes, if you can see the similarities… I have a thing for wah pedals now… I was previously hit by the ‘attacks’ for a Dunlop Slash Crybaby Wah, but after awhile it died off… pretty fast too. But back to the main thing… the EX-7… if I have to choose between the Budda Wah and this… I will have this for sure. Not only is it in black (my fav color… and somehow, Budda’s purple does not appeal to me too much…), it can also create a variety of effects, rather than one wah effect like the Budda Wah. It can create wah sounds (two Wahs, Crybaby and Clyde McCoy), whammy sounds, rotary sounds, univibe sounds, flanger sounds, and my personal favorite, the Space Station sounds. If you can understand the guitar language, it’s all good, but if can’t, it’s all gibberish. Ok, to the good news and bad news… well… it’s exactly the same case for the Budda Wah. But between these two, I would want the EX-7 the most, as I can then get rid off my Whammy XP-100… *tsk tsk, the ‘town’ (pedal case..) ain’t big enough for the two of you…

So that’s all for now… hopefully I can get over it…

Btw… Santa, if you’re reading this… I’ve been nice all year long… so…. PLEASE???