This angdao got me watching the BlueManGroup as well. For one its their entertaining stage performances, but to me that’s just the least of it. Two, there’s the music, derived from basic material such as pipes, exotic blending sounds and wonderful rhythm. There are stringed instruments and a swish-swosh stick, which you can see in the Sing Along MTV [1].

Then they have the innovative (and still humorous) way of using a head-in-a-box to bring the global warming [2] message across, especially on the emergency exits portion. Yet, that’s just the basic of what they can do, cos they then bring the show live with a TV on their head [3]. The concept is again exaggerated on a bigger scale in a later (or earlier?) ad [4].

Their innovation is demonstrated best in using extending pipes to create a trombone-like instrument, which they call the Drumbone [5]. Notice it still contains the abovementioned humor when they try to connect the pipes together. The connection to make a bigger Drumbone was rejected by turning the pipe to the side. Yet his attempts prevailed when he thought out of the box and brought the pipe down to connect to his own, thus creating a greater drumbone. It is also these innovation attempts that make their advertisements with Intel just as interesting. I’ll leave it to the next post to list the different ads that I found.

But ultimately what I think is really in them, is the philosophy behind the BMG. If you try and look at how they perceive the BMG, it explains how they feel to be “outside”. As an outsider [6], you are seen to be different. Is difference good? Currently, more people see it as a “misfit” than an attempt at “innovation”. When one of the Blue Man attempts to do something different, he is usually stared at by the other two, and he usually then joins back the “normal” two. Is this the same society we’re facing? Are attempts in “being different” accepted? By returning to be normal he has failed to make a difference and change the “society”. But the society accepts his failure and he becomes a regular Blue Man. He then challenges himself again and attempt another difference.

If we look back at the first song called Sing Along, the lyrics and MTV also suggest to me the same idea of acceptance and belonging.

If i sing a song,
will you sing along,
or should I just keep singing right here by myself?

“If I do or be different, will you join me? If you don’t should I still continue to do it?”

If I follow along,
does it mean I belong,
or will I keep on feeling different from everybody else?

“If I do the same as everyone else, does that MEAN I’m with everyone? But I know I’m different…”

And you can’t remain different, if Maslow’s needs hierarchy holds. It is a basic need to be accepted and feel belonging.

[1] Sing Along by Dave Matthews & Blue Man Group
[2] Earth to America
[3] Earth to America: Live
[4] Bluephoria Television Ad
[5] Drumbone: Live
[6] Outsiders
[7] Lyrics of Sing Along
[8] Wikipedia: Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

Yep I’m just procrastinating. I’m lazy to write though I feel like penning my thoughts down. I often wished that some device will transfer what I want to write in my brain to some external store so that I can recall it later. Especially just before bed, when some of my best ideas come along, I had to choose to (1) wake up, turn on my laptop to write it; (2) wake up, turn on the lights and scribble it on paper; (3) lie on the bed and try to sms-type it into my handphone beside me; (4) continue to try to sleep and hope I remember it tomorrow morning. All options are just a nuisance to me when I want to get to sleep earlier AND remember what I was thinking.

But all these has nothing to do with the procrastination I’m talking about. I’m just delaying doing something else, that’s why I’m here typing in all the entries I should have done regularly. Which brings me to an article [1] I read today in Today. Just to recap, the secret of being efficient is simply to:

1. Make a list.
2. Do the hardest thing first.

Number 1 is easy, I do that all the time. So i’m semi-efficient already. But like many others (everyone?) I just can’t bring myself to the second part.

[1] How to be efficient at work?

Met my upper poly classmates* in a January wedding, met par and ting on Fri and then the Quinnies on Sat. I must say I enjoyed each and everyone of them, and I think each gathering gets more precious as each of us goes on to live our own life.

Here’s my “updated” class photo:

* Upper poly classmates are analogous to upper secondary school classmates.

It came up again after seeing ahLi and jonquil31 talking about exercising after CNY.

Wouldn’t if be better if one resisted those CNY goodies, so there is no need to exercise off those extras?

Then, the one would not have enjoyed the CNY season.

Life is about the same choices isn’t it? Do you strive in a way you hate to, then to savour the fruits later; or enjoy the process and be glad you did?

Would you prefer to later regret that you did not work hard; or regret you did not live life the way you think you should have?

How many people on the different sides have persuaded each other to switch?

Conclusion 1: Strike a balance.

Conclusion 2: I’m probably spending too much time at home.

Yep the doc’s confirmed it — it’s the viral flu season and I’ve got it. Probably the doctor’s got it too, cos it a relief doctor on duty today.

But this relief doctor explains alot. Seems she’s either too passionate or she’s a freshie throwing out whatever she knows about doctor-ship. At least I learnt that its rather infectious, it’s quite easy to catch this flu as simply as walking into a crowded place. Which is what I do everyday when I travel to work or go to lunch. Also I met both phishie and windydays, who had some sort of flu as well.

She also advised me not to go out this weekend, attempt any strenuous exercise, especially swimming. She even commented that “the weather sucks” (the quotes means she said that literally) and I should stay home and rest. Cos “anyway the medicine I’m prescribing you will make you drowsy”. She gave sold me some panadol as well, which she said little people know it takes care of the type of pain as the one in my throat. Drink lots of water and fruits, and anything containing water, such as green tea or papaya and kiwi, which are rich in vitamin C. The rest will be left to my immune system to fight back.

So now I shall retreat early and heed my doc’s advice, get some serious rest and hope I’ll be up and kicking by Monday……

Well, I must say I’m surprised there are PEOPLE reading what I’m writing… and secondly ENTERTAINING!? OK probably things that happened to me won’t be that interesting to me.

And I’m here doing a week update, just because I thought there were some miscellaneous stuff that I wanted to note but it wasn’t significant enough to take up an entire post. And no it’s not a weekLY update, it’s just a special edition for this week.

1st: I think I blundered on the Macdonalds price hike — I went Mac for breakfast today and it seems prices are still normal. I must have visited some city Mac that sells higher; I upsized some weird thing to up the price; I was cheated; or I’m just plain blur.

2nd: Reading jonquil31’s miserable post made me think about my week, which happen to be not so good too. 2 outings were canceled, 1 with Quinnies and 1 with Cherlyn and gang. Then I had the bad 2nd interview, bad offer and now a bad reject.

3rd: I’ve got my StandChart debit card, but the password and PIN hasn’t arrived. I’ve been anticipating it, with disappointment every evening I open the letterbox. Every day late means a day less interest for me, albeit the TEENY WEENY cents. (is that how you use albeit? vocab improve time again)

4th: It seems I’ve been actively going towards completing my resolutions for the year: I’ve made effort to go to the bank to open an account; when I borrowed the car (although initiated by stoopidger), I purposely keep re-parking on my own; I’ve even popped into Yamaha @ PlazaSing to note Guitar prices, which start from S$140. I guess I’ll be better off borrowing one from some gave-up-guitarist. All in, there’s a start to more than 50% of the tasks on the list! Good job! *pat pat*

phishie’s got flu.

windydays’ got flu.

Now angdao’s also sneezing.

Is it my turn soon?

Went down to the bank to get my eSaver account open today… it offers the current highest savings account interest while I do not have enough savings funds to go for a better investment yet. Since I’ll be leaving my money in the bank account anyway, why not let it earn by itself? Though I know it’s still very very little interest, it’s still more than 7 times more than what I can get elsewhere. Also the daily calculated interest is paid monthly instead of annually, so there’s actually a bigger compound interest factor, making it worth even more than the “more than 7 times more”.

In the end I opened two accounts with them, the original eSaver I went for, and an additional bank account which links to my eSaver account. The “promoter” introduced me an accompanying account that comes with a debit card and cheque book, so I was able to withdraw eSaver funds from the ATM directly with the card, despite eSaver itself being unable to. This also granted me access to the atm5 network which I’ve been wanting to join. I’ve queued enough at those dreaded POSB/DBS atms!

Since the new account also had no minimum balance I just needed $1 in each account to get it open. The only catch which he reminded me is to cancel the new account after 3 years, cos that’s the time for the expiry for fee waiver! Hopefully I’ll be lucky enough to get an extended waiver from them!

Yeah I know I’m one day late in preparing my resolutions, but, well I still have 364 days in this year! And it’s this same attitude that makes all those unresolved resolutions.

Speaking of which, before I start to make the sacred list, I’m wondering why it’s called a RESOLUTION??? Like it’s something to resolve? or 1024×768??? Well someone should come tell me the origin and why it’s call a resolution. Also, I seldom make resolutions, at least not formally like writing it down this time. Why? Because I know I’ll default on the resolutions, so why make them? But then, rules were written to be broken. So… out of some fun, here’s MY list this year…

• Brush up (as in relearn) my parking skills
• Get a facelift = seek treatment probably
• Play a guitar! — if I do get my hands on one within this year…
• Transfer my savings to somewhere else where I get more than S$6 interest in a year :'(
• And, make my dear angry less times than last year!

OK, I’ll probably skip the actual counting on the last wish, hopefully I’ll be able to FEEEL that it happened less times at the end of this year. More importantly, no IT stuff! It’s my life side of things!