Other Reviews

MF, Kevin, Jo and I watched Pygmalion yesterday. The promo bit below was irresistible to theater-goers with a penchant for language play and the like.

A tale about language, class, manners and matters of the heart that is as true today as it was at the beginning of the last century. And given Malaysia's unique penchant for the use and misuse of English; the opportunities for Manglish, malapropisms and hilarious turns of phrase are fantastic.

When MF managed to get good seats at 40% off (thanks to Maxis One Club), we decided to go ahead and watch the local play that was based on Pygmalion (from which My Fair Lady was based upon).

Pygmalion is a character from the Roman poet Ovid in the tenth book of his Metamorphoses. Pygmalion is a sculptor who falls in love with a statue he has made.

Pygmalion, son of Belus, was a lonely sculptor who carved a woman out of ivory. He prayed to Venus, the goddess of beauty and love, who took pity on him and brought the statue to life. ~ excerpt taken from here

By then, our expectations were quite low, thanks to some bad reviews that we read. But since we've bought the tickets already, we have no choice but to go ahead lah.

Throughout the show, I couldn't help comparing it to the wonderful experience I had watching My Fair Lady on vcd. How real the chemistry was between Eliza Doolittle and gruff Prof Higgins. How well-crafted the story line was, that the only bits that seemed draggy were the parts that featured Eliza's dad.

Our local Pygmalion rated quite low in those areas. I couldn't feel the connection between the two leading casts. At several points of the show I actually found myself yawning and nodding away sleepily because I found it draggy. Or maybe I had that huge fishhead curry to blame? Sadly, I found most of the language jokes in the first half of the show to be rather unfunny.

Hmmm, and oh, I felt that they should have done away with Lisa's dad's role. I couldn't see how having him in the story line actually added anything to the whole show. Instead of his long and draggy scenes, I felt that they should have put in the scene where Lisa started learning how to pronounce words correctly and use it to show a growing bond between the tutor and the student.

What made this play not a total waste of our time was the vocal talent that Michelle Quah had. Man, were we mesmerised by the pure poetry and power in her amazing voice. The supporting chorus girls had wonderful voices as well. But the best supporting actress has got to be Sarah Sharum - the lady who played the fun and brazenly sexy role of 'Mrs. Pearce'. In the hands of a less seasoned actor, that role could have been over-acted and gave the audience heart palpitations of the bad kind. But Sarah played the role so well and in such a tasteful way that I felt like I wanted to rush out and get myself a cute maid's costume as well. In short, I wished I could act like her!

I didn't realise that Harith couldn't sing all that well until he had to sing in a duet with Michelle. Gosh, the gap between the non-singer (Harith) and the professional vocal trainer (cun mommy Michelle) was so apparent that I wondered why they had to put poor Harith through that. Well, at least the man could sing in tune and he gave it all he had, gutsy guy that he was. A lesser man would have chickened out of it.

I guess it was unfair to compare our local production to the hugely successful 1964 movie but I couldn't help it lar. The effort was commendable but there's still a long way to go.

We had a wonderful supper afterwards at Nailis - an interesting makan place that was nicely built to resemble a fishing village - complete with huts up the trees where you can eat closer to the sky. And on the way back home, we had a listen to the My Fair Lady broadway soundtrack and that reminded us of why we came out in the first place. To support our local arts effort to someday be of international standard fare.

A big-hearted gadget freak and blog reader who wishes to be anonymous has gotten an Ipod Nano last Fri. Since he would be busy this week, he suggested that I have the honour to test drive it. I think he has this hope that I would plunk my money to join the bandwagon. But no, I think I'm strong enough to resist that temptation.

But ooooh yes, I have one whole week, with a cool and chic mp3 player. That was enough to get me drooling.


Nano on my palm


My phone and Nano side by side. Looks about the same size, ya?


Not exactly... This is my thick phone. Notice how fat it makes my hand look.


And this is the super slim Nano. Man, if this is not a geekgirl magnet, I dunno what is!

This thing actually fits in my tightest jeans and still not show much of a bulge. I can bring it anywhere!

I am suddenly possessed with the enthusiasm to go for a jog or walk at Klang Hill. I can imagine the slow mo way I'm jogging with sweet sweet music blaring in my ears and people wondering where on earth did I stash the normally bulky mp3 player. Yeah, the things I do for the sake of research.

Guess that would make a good tagline for Nano ~ The key to a healthier lifestyle.

The sound quality is great. It took me a while to get used to the navigation system e.g. controlling the volume, checking out other nifty features like photo viewing, calendar, contacts and even games (I haven't figured out how to play Solitaire on Nano yet!). Uploading songs via iTunes is almost a no-brainer, although it was so seamless that I managed to completely wipe out all of the cool songs that were previously painstakingly copied over by the owner. Oooops...

Also unfortunately, the Nano doesn't play well with my Easy MP3 FM Modulator. The interference was just too horrendous. But I guess it should work better with Belkin Tunecast.

The screen is a wee bit small for viewing photos but should be sufficient to show your friends your latest hunk of the month niece/nephew antics.

I also like the fact that it is sensitive to motion and the backlight lights up whenever I pick it up to see the title of the song that's currently playing.

Nano comes in 2Gb and 4Gb. The unit I'm testing is a 4Gb one (cost is about RM1.2k). And apparently, there is a shortage of both models, and a 4-week waiting list for the 4Gb model. Colorful casings are not available locally as yet. But my friend mentioned that getting a white Nano would bring out the colors of those housing covers better than a black one. So get a white Nano if you are planning to change cases like clothes.

Ok, I'm done with my review. Now to go play with my new toy!

Updates: A colleague was so impressed with my new toy that he tried it out on his car's FM tuner and it worked so fine that he's getting one of his own soon. Wah, I'm turning to be as bad as Tim!

I splurged RM128 (now probably RM68! I'm gonna kill Tim!!!) on a new toy that I didn't even knew existed until very recently. And I blame Tim for it. Trust him to dangle new gadgets, gizmos and toys to me every now and then like some juicy carrot. Bad influence, your name is Tim .

Anyway, back to my new toy. It's really the coolest thing ever. Almost everybody that I talked to drooled when I described what it can do. And they asked me to test it out and give them a full report when I'm done. So, here it is - in full color and all.

What is this gizmo anyway?

This universal FM Modulator allows you to play your pen drive (yes, pen drive!!! Woo-hoo!) and any other audio source (Ipods, other mp3 players, CD & DVD players) through your car's FM tuner. It's like Belkin tunecast and more!

How do you install it?

If you are using a usb pen drive, you just plug it to the usb connector at the back of the FM modulator. For other devices, you can connect it using the cable provided. After that, plug the other end into your ciggie lighter slot. Tune your FM channel to the channel that you have selected on your FM modulator (it gives you the option of 7 pre-set channels). Even if it's occupied by any radio station, it still works. And voila, once you hit the correct station and hear the music belting out from your speakers, you are done!

I wasn't sure if the thing could read my mp3 files stored in the folders of my usb drive, so I placed them all on to the root directory. Updates as at 9 Sept 05: Yes, it can sniff out files located in the subfolders - the clever thing!

How's the sound quality like?

The quality wasn't that great, unfortunately. Certain songs sounded rather muffled. I guess it is largely dependent on the quality of the mp3 itself. But being a non-audiophile person, I have no complaints. I can live with average quality music without cringing nor hyperventilating.

Do you like the design of this thingamajic?

Honestly speaking, I found the design to be a little weird. Kinda like a doorknob or something. Also, the front panel controls were a little hard to manoeuvre while driving. You sort of need two fingers gripping the thing to hold it steady if you want to skip or repeat songs. I haven't checked whether it has any other advanced functions, but I shall have to explore that later and update it here.

Would I recommend it to friends and foes alike?

Heh, yeah! For RM128, I can use my existing usb pen drive as a portable MP3 player. Sure saved me a lot of moolah than getting an Ipod, don't you think? Besides, even if I do eventually acquire an Ipod, I'll still need this to connect it to my car speakers.

Before I ripped the package open

Here's the front portion

And here's the back where you plug in your usb pen drive

A close-up of the front - Ain't it a beauty?

I came across a newspaper ad on the Irish stage comedy 'Alone It Stands' last Saturday morning.

"6 people playing 52 roles... This I must see!" But looking at the ticket price tag of RM102 made me gulp and think twice. Maybe if I could get cheaper tickets and some friends to go with, I will seriously consider watching it.

A few days later, my friend Vivi sent a mass invitation saying that she's able to get the tickets for that Wednesday's screening of Alone It Stands for half the price. Wow, is that an answer to my subsconscious prayer or what?

Out of the few friends I invited, two responded - Rina and Esther. Esther was a hard sell.

"Are you sure it'll be funny? I mean, I'm not into sports and all."

"Will we be able to understand what they are saying. You know, Irish accent can be so difficult to comprehend!"

Gosh, trying to convince her did plant some seeds of doubt in me. But hey, for half the ticket price, I'm still gamed to watch how those 6 people tackle the role of 52 - Irish brogue or not. Heck, even Pierce Brosnan has an Irish accent and I can understand him just fine, plus I've had the longest crush on him since I was a kid in braids.

To my delight, one of the actors did resemble Brosnan and talks like him, too! And despite the initial confusing first 15 minutes of trying to understand how they change roles and adjusting to the thick Irish brogue whenever they were playing Irish roles, we managed to get a good grasp of it. The acting was very good and the level of energy exhibited by the actors was sky high. It was amazing seeing how convincing they were playing the roles of Maori rugby players, aging men and women, cheeky girls and even a dog!

For someone who has no clue what rugby is all about and have no idea where All Blacks originated from, I enjoyed about 90% of the show tremendously. The remaining 10% was lost during the very graphic rugby match, I had no idea what was going on being an ignoramus towards the rules of the game.

All in all, it's a worthwhile watch. The quality of the acting is so good that they don't need fancy props and sound effects. I highly recommend it. Even skeptical Esther enjoyed herself

Went for my first Actors Studio performance this year and it was not disappointing. Maybe because I wasn't expecting anything much in the first place Met Synical there who also wrote a review of the event.

I thought I saw Marion Caunter (8TV Quickie host) but wasn't too sure about that so wanted to double check with my friends.

"Eh, is that Marion Caunter ah?" I asked.

That drew blank looks from them. I gave up asking those Astro-fans and non-8TV Quickie watchers after a while. What's the point of getting excited about bumping into a celebrity when none of your friends never even heard about them? Exactly.

But they noticed Hans Isaac - someone whom I really didn't recognise but have vaguely heard about.

And one of my friends bumped into her German boss who was there with his family. She wondered if they actually enjoyed the show as some of the lines were delivered in Malay by the actors. Harith Iskandar was mindful about that and he made some efforts to steer back the conversation into English.

The show proper started around 8.35pm with Edwin Sumun coming out to introduce the cast for the night's show - Harith Iskandar, Gavin Yap, Ida Nerina, Afdlin Shauki and Reza Zainal Abidin. I was rather disappointed to hear about the absence of Jit Murad and Patrick Teoh. Jit because he's such a witty and talented actor and Patrick because I was really curious about seeing the normally serious him doing all sorts of funny stuff on stage upon the whim and fancy of the audience. It was a full house yesterday night.

Actorlympics was similar to 'Whose Line is It Anyway? (WLIIA)' but our actors were not really at par to the WLIIA players. But casting all expectations aside, I enjoyed most of the show anyway. Afdlin Shauki was the most natural wit amongst them all and I loved how he portrayed Marlin, Nemo's dad in a scene from 'Finding Nemo'.

It was the first time I saw Gavin Yap performing and I was quite impressed with this young talent - he really could make you believe he's a tough black dude (if you close your eyes, that is). Ida Nerina was energetic and bubbly, while Harith could crack you up with a look on his very expressive face. He also did a mean dance on stage, Bollywood style complete with the fancy head turns.

In short, the whole show was fun and of a good concept although there are areas that can be vastly improved upon - both in the audience's input and the actors' ability of not to be caught off-guard. Perhaps Actorlympics 2006 would fare better? We shall see