Preparation for 2nd podcast
Hi,
I'm starting work on the 2nd podcast. Christmas edition. This time it will be more organized, since people might play the show during the christmas season.In other words, it will be done in a way such that you can play it out at home for everyone to listen to. :)
In the meantime, the playreading for my musical "Closer to Your Heart" will happen this Sunday. I just received word that Dick Lee will be offering his assistance to the team as a mentor. Cool bananas. I hope that everyone will be impressed with the musical. They
have to.
Back at home, things are maintaining at a certain miserable level. I'm clinging on to my love for music, God, my mum and my brother. If not for these things, i'd have gone insane.
I've been wanting to put up pictures of my room/studio and my new toy, but hav'nt had the chance to do so. Will probably update this post with the pictures when i get home tonight.
Till then, take care!
The aftermath
Hi!
The response for the podcast has been mediocre... i noticed there have been quite a few downloads and visits, however, very few comments! I don't know if i should continue the thing or not...
If you've listened to it, please leave a comment! Let me know if i should continue with the shows... Do not be disappointed with the first show, because the quality
will get better. But i need feedback... tell me what you think... tell me that you've heard the show...
And if you liked it, please tell your friends about it! The only way for this to grow is more publicity. Unlike some other famous bloggers, i'm not out for attention. I want to share music. I want to entertain. Why?
Simply coz, i don't want to keep my talent to myself. I'd like to make a difference in your lives.
So please.. let me know what you wanna hear...
I hope i'll get more feedback soon. :)
The Winterealm Show/Podcast #1 [Debut!]
Hey folks.. The Podcast show has begun.
Decided to take my mind off life abit, and do the Winterealm show thingie. In case you care, my mum's fine and back at home now. She had an infection on a burn wound and triggered a side effect from the medicine she applied on it.
So, i sat down and recorded a little show of me singing a few christian songs, since i was in the mood. It's very freaky hearing myself talk. There are alot of bloopers, and i don't intend to remove them. I hope the thingie will be well received. Otherwise, it'll just be a one time thing. If it
is well received, i will continue.
This show was recorded in a laidback manner, and with pretty questionable audio quality intentionally for certain reasons.
(i) proof that it's original
(ii) people from ripping the songs apart.
Please leave your comments. And tell your grandmother and her friends about the show. :)
Disclaimer:
This episode of the show contains christian content, and features me singing christian songs.
If you do not like such material, don't listen.
Get the Winterealm Show Debut here![edit]the podcast feed :
http://feeds.feedburner.com/winterealm[/edit]
ps: i'm very new to this podcast shit... while the mp3 is up, the podcasting essential technicalities are'nt. I'll be looking into them.
Dark times
Mum's return has unveiled some revelations. I am going through some really bad times now.
I'm broke... my family is breaking apart... i'm heading nowhere with my music ... and i'm walking through these times alone... There are many things that i can't say here... but there's a pretty good chance that i may have to start living on myself, so i need to prepare for that.
I guess this is an opportunity for me to really push myself. It's an emotional motivation as well.
Right now, i'm hanging onto the phrase
"What does'nt kill you , make you stronger.." .I don't know what to write anymore at this time... My mum's lying in the hospital.. i hope she recovers soon and be healthy...
The Winterealm Podcast?
I've been a fan of podcasts ever since i've bought my iPod. And seeing how Podcasting is starting to take off in Singapore, i see it as a growing way of reaching out to the masses.
And so, i'm thinking of reviving my now-discontinued Winterealm Live show, probably on podcast this time.
For those who don't really know, i used to host these live shows on my shoutcast server at night. What i would do is, i'd allow 10-12 pple in, and i'd sing songs while playing on my keyboard at the same time.. It was pretty fun and cool, taking requests and all, but i had to stop it after awhile, coz i was'nt getting enough support, and my server could'nt handle too many people. But now, doing a custom music podcast would be special, and just might hit it off. I'm thinking along the lines of the Don and Drew Show . I love that show so much! And i've not found an alternative thus far. So, i think i might just be starting this shit.
Question is, if i do it, will
you be interested/excited?
The week in summary.
It's been a pretty okay week. But the weekend was boring, in a sense.
I've been on a gaming and eating marathon! Ever since my mum came back, there's been an abundance of food. I'm finding difficulty in setting aside time to workout, coz everytime i do, it's time to eat. -_-;
Anyways, our department went on a little hiking trip earlier in the week, at the MacRitchie Nature Reserve. I did'nt know they had built a treetop bridge.
Anyway, we trekked for like 6 kilometres in total. Up the little hill and eventually up to a treetop platform, with a moderately long industrial-made bridge suspended on the trees. The view was'nt particularly good. It was'nt particularly high either. Just mediocre. Infact, the highlight was'nt such a highlight at all.. It was like a secret bridge tucked away in the middle of the forest. If i were to build something like this, i'd make sure i do some marketting on it, and make it
the highlight of the nature reserve. Oh well.
On a sidenote, the monkeys have skin that is immune to barbwires! O_O;
This morning's breakfast was sinful as usual. My weekend breakfasts usually are.
I made 6 Strips of bacon with 3 hashbrowns. The photo taken was particularly beautiful..infact, the most beautiful food picture i ever took.
I decided to add some standard effects to it, making it look like a
Chubbyhubbyish kinda pic, and put it up. :)
Aside from that... I'm working on doing a recording of the musical i wrote.
Looking for
2 Female mezzo-sopranos/soprano singers as well as
a male baritone.
I'm actually feelin' like a loser, after giving my number to a girl and not getting a call from her. Now that i think back to what i did that morning, i feel kinda dumb.
oh gosh..what have i done?!
The end (of the week) is near
Realized i hav'nt been blogging. Over the past week, i've changed how the blog looked though. Tweaking the layout here and there. It does look more personal, more Frederick now.
You know.. my life is a bore right now..... there's like absolutely
nothing happening in my life atm... i'm so bored i gave my number to a random attractive chick who stood beside me on the train the other day. Just for that moment of adrenaline.
Mum is back from Hongkong for awhile, but she's been bitching about everything from the ceiling to the floor..... it's really un-nerving... even though i had missed her so much... but now that she's back,she can't stop scolding everyone. I guess you can't please everyone huh?
I'm looking forward to my bro's return home on the 26th of November..
One thing is i hav'nt seen him for over a year, and another thing is he's bringing me back a nice toy. It's a drumpad by M-audio. Basically, it's a cool device that will let me play drums with my fingers tapping away, and will let me make better music. :)
Spruced up blog
Finally got my ass down to spruce up the blog a little.
Changed the colours back to my usual trademark blueish theme, also made a little header based on the current background picture from my Winterealm.com site.
I'm actually trying to decide whether to change the bg color of the blog to a blue hue, or leave it as white. What do you think?
Anyway, went to watch Tom Yam Goong tonight. It was an okay movie. The fight scenes were very good. But the production of the movie was horrible. Video editing was choppy, very lame midi soundtrack. If the whole packaging was better, the movie would have been alot classier. Especially since Tony Jaa did the stunts to perfection. The production simply did'nt do him justice.. which once again shows, how packaging is
so important. Good packaging can make the worst look good, and bad packaging could make the best look worst.
An unlucky/lucky ride
Took the bus home today from Police Academy. Just a couple of minutes after getting on the bus, suddenly everyone experienced a huge jerk, like as if the bus ran over a dog or somethin'. The jerk went on for awhile, and eventually the bus came to a stop by the pavement. Everybody were looking all over, until the doors flung open, and the bus driver beckoned us out. The smell of hot rubber was introduced to us, and everyone knew that it was the tyres. What was shocking was how badly screwed up the tyre was!
It looks completely wrecked. And come to think of it, if the bus was in the middle of the road going at high speeds, or taking a turn when this happened, the results could've been disastrous. Thank God no disaster happened, and we managed to walk away grumbling about the delayed ride.
Another cooking entry!
Ok now.. Got home tonight and decided not only to cook, but to take pictures and blog about it. Kinda makes the whole cooking experience a little more interesting.
I made noodles again, my favourite. Together with prawn/shrimp omlette with spring onions/chives. This omlette, is one of, if not the favourite dishes that i like, and could just eat with a bowl of rice.
Anyway, i thought of giving a detailed account of how i cooked this shitty dinner, but it'd make my blog look like some flog (Food-Log), which it's not, and i'm no expert chef either. So, i'll just briefly explain with the pictures.
Main Ingredients: 3 Eggs, 4 prawns, Spring onions
Deshell the prawns and dump the shells+heads into the pot of boiling water to make the broth.
Slice up the prawns into halves, chop up 2 prawns for the omlette.
It's a 3 egg omlette. :)
Dump spring onions, chopped prawns, soy sauce, some sugar, some salt and beat with eggs.
Fry some finely chopped garlic...
..Followed by the prawns...
Time to fry the omlette..
These are the lovely noodles i use.
Cook em' noodles.
Eggs are cookin' nicely.
And the finished product.
My noodles.
My omlette.
It tasted ok. I forgot to add something to the soup, so it did'nt taste perfect.. but omlette was perfect.
After dinner, i was supposed to make some coffee from my usual Nescafe 3in1 Regular. Then an idea struck me, and i just went ahead with it. Combine 1 packet of Nescafe 3in1 Regular with 1 Packet of Milo 3in1. The result? Hot Mocha. hahaha... Thats all folks.
Back to Monday
I overslept today pretty late. Woke up at 8 am, jumped out of bed right into the showers and left for work.
Had a pretty boring weekend. Bad gaming experience yesterday. Got mad at a couple of guys ingame, and things got kinda ugly in the linkshell. I was frustrated.. at the dedication and effort i took to serve the linkshell, and people take me for granted. Oh in case you're wondering wtf i'm talking about. I'm talking about the game Final Fantasy 11 . It is a mass multiplayer online role playing game. Which basically, is a game that features a world of it's own, with about a population of about 3-4000 people. A linkshell is a like a team or even a 'Family' that we build/join.
Getting kinda broke... wonder when will i start getting paid for my music.
Food for Thought
This entry is going to be about food. Counting back 2 days, starting from this morning.
Because i'm home alone alot, i've somehow or rather cultivated some cooking skills. Much of it was passed down by my mum, otherwise, just a touch of creativity and imagination can help cook a nice meal.
That's my uberly oily american style breakfast today. 3 Farmland hashbrowns, together with 1 "splattered fried egg" . I don't call it an omlette or a sunny side up simply coz, it is'nt. What makes a splattered egg is when you pop open the egg pretty high up from the pan, and it literally splatters all over the pan, usually breaking the yolk in the process, and looking like how it'd look if thrown on the floor. The result is a thin but consistant piece of fried egg :P
And if there's anything i love more for breakfast, it's gotta be hashbrowns. I adore hashbrowns.
Had a very pleasant evening last night with Lynn. A friend whom i've not met for 6 years. Finally managed to peel her away from her auditor job, and met up for a long overdued dinner. 6 years...
We went to the same restaurant which we ate at 6 years ago. Swensens . Only, this time, the one at Orchard. I had the classic Chicken Baked rice, with a Seafood Chowder soup, while she picked the Crayfish Pasta. I avoid pasta at 'family restaurants' , coz i think nothing of the pasta they make. It's usually overcooked, and comes with the same sauce base that they use for the 36 other pastas on the menu.
So anyway, i was'nt impressed by the food. Soup did'nt
have any flavour at all. It was just cream soup with bits and pieces of seafood dumped into it. How cheap.
Baked rice was okay. Luckily the chicken was actually pretty tender. No softbones or anything.
Wish they'd bake the cheese a little more though... or a little more cheese for that matter.
Went to Coffeebean across the road to have a nice latte, and chatted abit more about my music and her boyfriend and stuff, before we went home.
This last picture was my dinner 2 days ago! It's nice to have a nice hot bowl of soup noodles on a rainy night.
Soup was prepared with some Ikan Billis stock granules, some soy sauce, some seasame seed oil, some fish sauce and some salt. Yes, a total 5 somes was used in the last sentence.
Cooked it with some
yong tau fu i bought at cold storage, and after that, dumped a bundle of shanghainese white noodles into the soup and let it cook for awhile. Noodles were taken out, leaving only the soup in the pot, popped an egg in and stirred around the yolk for a few secs to create that 'egg flower' effect, and then emptied the contents of the pot to the bowl, with the noodles and
yong tau fu.
Dinner is served. Do you want some? ;)
Finally, it's completed.
Managed to finish writing lyrics for all 9 songs, in the span of about 7 hours. The first half of the writing marathon was a breeze. Ideas came with every second. I got rhymes and stuff flowing right onto my Word document. It was but a matter of time i was down to the final two songs.
For some reason, the final 2 songs were alot harder to write. Probably coz it was already past 12 AM, and i had been churning out lyrics for the past 6 hours! If my body was'nt tired, i think my brain needed a break. Eventually after an hour+ , i finished up the final 2 songs at about 2 AM.
Yet another feat that i'm pretty happy with. I'm glad i'm going to have a good night's sleep tonight, even though i only have like 5 hours of sleep left. lol.
I'd like to thank the people who have been giving me your undying support. (in no particular order)
Janice,
Cherlyn, Mr.
Louyau ,
Daniel Singh, my
NS Pals, and last but not least,
Serene, for entering my life again, to inspire me with the painful memories we shared. I'm gonna go sleep now. It's time to unwinddddd.
All Done
I finally completed my songs within the deadline.
14 songs, in about 2 weeks, plus minus a day or two. Was'nt easy.. infact, was the biggest challenge i've faced to date. Musically. I'm getting the hang of it though. It's different when you're working under pressure. I must admit though, a couple of the songs probably sound very 'factory made' . But at least 7 of them, had personal touches added to them.
This takes a great load away from me, but at the same time, introduced a new challenge.
Lyrics.
I now have the responsibility of finishing up the lyrics for about 8 songs, coz our lyricist has to be away, and cannot finish them. Hell i'm just gonna let every word flow out and just fill in the blanks for now. Deadline is tommorow.. and this is the absolute deadline. Not my own personal deadline. So, yeah...
Crazy little thing called Life!
Life is getting interesting... i'm amused. There's a new staff appointed in my department , but from another unit downstairs. Her name is Belle. At first i thought she's just some other chick.
But i was thinking about random things today, and she popped up in my head (coz we ran into each other earlier in the canteen, but i don't think she saw me) .
Suddenly, it dawned upon me that i had a friend 3 years ago called Belle too. She fit her description.
(i) Tall, Skinny (she's like what.. 172cm?)
(ii) Looks like Phyllis Quek
(iii) about 3 years my junior
(iv) Surname is Chua
after some investigating, i found out she stays at Woodlands too. Which is where the one i knew stayed. So right now, it's like 90% chance that she was the Belle i was knew many years ago. We were buddies then. But somehow, i can't remember how we lost contact. I knew her boyfriend then, well too. Infact, i was trying to woo his sister. Hahaha.. good times. I'm quite excited that i might get reconciled with an old friend once again! Coz we were pretty close back then... always going out together and shit.
I'm gonna bring a photo i took with her back then, and show it to her on Friday.
"Hi .. does this picture look familiar? "Hohoho... i can't believe somehow or rather, i'm crossing paths with people i used to know long ago again. It's funny how life works is'nt it ? One second you seem like the loneliest person in the world. The next, friends are popping up all over. :)
Holiday season
Already past the deadline i had set for myself ... The real deadline for the music is actually 4th November, this coming Friday. But I set it to Tuesday, 3 days earlier to be safe. Today is Wednesday, i have 2 songs left.
Fortunately, the remaining 2 songs are pretty small songs, so i think i should be able to finish them. Now the only problem are the lyrics. I think i'll need to help out with alot of lyrics, coz my lyricist can't seem to cope.
It's a holiday week. This week there are 2 public holidays, falling on Tuesday and Thursday.
Tuesday was Deepavali, which is a Hindu festival, where they basically display lots of lights to scare off evil spirits or something... throughout the festival are many religious demonstrations, like walking on hot coal, body piercing, etc.
Thursday is Hari Raya, the Malay New Year celebration.
I've been having fun with my iPod. It has been working flawlessly, other than its battery, which drains
very fast if you play around with it alot.
I've been spending most of my time (when i'm not writing songs) organizing, and entering Song information into my thousands of MP3s , so they appear nicely on my iPod and iTunes. Song titles, Artistes, Album info, etc. A BIG hassle, but i just do abit at a time, eventually it'll all look nice and slick.
One thing i enjoyed alot so far on the iPod are
Podcasts! They update automatically, and the ones i listen to are so damn funny. Lightens up my mornings at work.
I Subscribe to the Mr Brown Show , 98.7 Don and Drew show, and this foreign 1 uncannily called the Dawn and Drew show. The latter one has some explicit language and content, but it's all good in the name of fun.
I can imagine my song writing marathon will soon be over, and i can play some games soon. Been neglecting my FF11 and F.E.A.R . But seriously, i'm surprised by what i had done over the past 2 weeks. 14 songs in 2 weeks. There are a couple of reprisals, but i'd say.... at least 7 of the songs are unique and actually pretty good. At least, to me. When this is over, i'll record them and put them up. Afterall, i have the copyrights to them.
That's it for now. Have a good day! Many friends of mine are having their exams now/soon . Good luck!
