Archive for May, 2011

Supertzar live!!

Tuesday, May 31st, 2011

What a weekend – practice on Friday, got home, Saturday work and homework, a bit of shopping, and then to my gig. Lots of people came out to this one, thanks to my SMS campaign (works better than Facebook or email, trust me). Check out videos from all the bands that played here.

Despite some sound foulups (distortion, a missed cue), we rocked!! Here are the songs we played:

Crazy Train:

Black Sabbath:

Paranoid:

War Pigs:

Chile con carne

Thursday, May 26th, 2011

No, not the song from the Betty Blue soundtrack, this is the real thing!  Naoko’s chile is the best, and she just made it today for the first time.  Baked the bread too.  Feast your eyes…

Chile con carne, baby!

Chile con carne, baby!

Bukit Timah area construction

Thursday, May 26th, 2011

Wow, things sure have changed a lot in a year…

This road is no longer a road

This road is no longer a road

The lanes have become super tidy.    (July 2011)

The lanes have become super tidy. (July 2011)

The lanes have become super tidy.    (July 2011)

The lanes have become super tidy. (July 2011)

Note the lack of a pedestrian crossing at this intersection - you have to detour way around.  So typical...

Note the lack of a pedestrian crossing at this intersection - you have to detour way around. So typical...

It's all covered up now, but...

It's all covered up now, but... Â Â (May 2011)

... one year ago this was a big pit

... one year ago this was a big pit. Â (June 2010)

Looks like a toy track now, but...

Looks like a toy track now, but... Â (May 2011)

... one year ago it looked like there wasn't even a road there.

... one year ago it looked like there wasn't even a road there. Â (June 2010)

Construction destruction

Construction destruction. Â Â (May 2011)

Destruction construction

Destruction construction. Â (May 2011)

The Jalan Jurong Ketchil construction is finished...

The Jalan Jurong Ketchil construction is finished...

...oops, not all of it is done

...oops, not all of it is done

And here's what it looked like a year ago. Not much different.

And here's what it looked like a year ago. Not much different.

Around Singapore

Sunday, May 22nd, 2011

Lots of stuff going on around town.

Singapore sunset

Singapore sunset

Singapore speaker truck

Singapore speaker truck

the "Live Long And Prosper Party" didn't do well in the polls

the "Live Long And Prosper Party" didn't do well in the polls. Love their Star Trek logo, though.

Star Trek logo

actual Star Trek logo

cialis price comparison us

Groovy infrastructure

Go to Tanjong Pagar to have your hair cut by an Otaku!

Go to Tanjong Pagar to have your hair cut by an Otaku!

tadalafil online sicuro

Pedestrian path blocked, part 1

Pedestrian path blocked, part 2

Pedestrian path blocked, part 2

Pedestrian path blocked, part 3

Pedestrian path blocked, part 3

Pedestrian path blocked 4 - nice place to put a dumpster

Pedestrian path blocked 4 - nice place to put a dumpster

No pedestrian path at all

No pedestrian path at all

One little sidewalk next to a road that cars don't even use

One little sidewalk next to a road that cars don't even use

Mirror Men 1

Mirror Men 1

Mirror Men 2

Mirror Men 2

Mirror Men 3

Mirror Men 3

Coca Cola is a very popular drink in Singapore

Coca Cola is a very popular drink in Singapore

Another Standard Chartered Bank branch bites the dust

Another Standard Chartered Bank branch bites the dust. "Here for good" indeed!

The obvious sign

The obvious sign

another Burger King bites the dust

another Burger King bites the dust

How could Narcissus be anything BUT number one?

How could Narcissus be anything BUT number one?

Cathedral, Electric Wizard, Thor

Sunday, May 22nd, 2011

Today I’ve got a few pretty macho reviews to put up for two CDs and a movie.

CD reviews

CTGG

CTGG

Cathedral, “The Guessing Game”: The new Cathedral release is their first double album, and it’s been getting great reviews. Of course, as a true-in-the-wool Cathedral fan, I had to check it out. It doesn’t impress greatly at first, but it appeals more on repeated listens. It is, like so many Cathedral albums, a consistent diatribe against religion and questions the voyage of life, with some witches and warlocks stuff thrown in, and it is very much of the same mind as the Dave Pratchett cover art (which folds out to a poster version of an illustrated question mark twelve times the size of the CD cover). The first song, “Immaculate Misconception”, is an instrumental, and it starts off with the sound of a woman moaning (in intercourse? in labour?), and then there are smashing guitar, cymbol and keyboard sounds, topped off by the cry of a newborn child. The next song “Funeral of Dreams” is a wild old drudger that goes into weird tooting sounds a la the experimental stuff heard on the “Statik Magik” EP. It has all the familiar elements of a mid-pace Cathedral (they only have doom-, slow- and mid-paced songs), with some passages of psychedelic vocals. “Painting in the Dark” starts off with a soundbite from Ruth Gordon in the film “Harold and Maude” (“Well, if this is reality, you can stick it; I’m off to do some painting in the dark.“) and the song sneers and heaves. The song has a poppy chorus, great drive and a cool solo. “Death Of An Anarchist” starts off with a sad, Metallica-type acoustic intro, then gushes over with sloppy, broad chords and riffs. Come to think of it, the whole song sounds very Metallica. The lyrics, however, are straight out of a Survivor anthem. “The word ‘love’ people say with shame / but in this heart there’s a burning flame / I take a look at society / A misfit, I guess that’s me.” Of course, after a while, the song gallops, and then it starts to sound more like an Iron Maiden song… until the wah-heavy solo kicks in, and it sounds more like a Metallica song again.  Metallica, Maiden, Survivor, Metallica.  The title track “The Guessing Game” starts off with trippy Yes-like orchestral strains and medieval harmonies and toots and tweets, it’s an instrumental that rolls along happily, but with a tinge of doom. “Edwige’s Eyes” starts off with a scary movie sample from some sort of black mass, the song is a torrid tale of witches (regular territory for Cathedral). The horror, the horror…  The song pays tribute to Ewige Fenech, the actress of Italian Gallio films. “Cats, Incense, Candles and Wine” is a trippy and boring scary song that is not heavy (except for one part) at all – change things up a bit with a bit of weird, whistling psychedelia (of course, ditto, it’s all been done before on Statik Magik). “One Dimensional People” is a cool, trudging doom masterpiece that has slight industrial tinges (and wicked bass attack) and some great noodly guitar interplays between slow and mid-tempo in its monstrous opening progression, it’s followed quickly by “Casket Chasers”, a punchy, raw rocker – the singing is wild and angry and comes in three flavours: shouted, whispered and singalong. Yeeeeee-hah!! “La Noche Del Buque Maldito (a.k.a. Ghost Ship of the Blind Dead)” starts off with a cool bass boom that sounds like the heaving of a ghost ship before launching into a fun, sizzling rocker that slows right back down to a doomy trudge by the end.

The last three songs on the release are the longest on the album, and they get progressively longer and longer. I’ve marked “The Running Man” as the best song on the album, probably because of the monstrously trippy, washed out bass sound that recalls the best moments of Rollins Band’s “The End of Silence” that can be heard throughout the last two minutes of the song. It starts off funky, with keyboard, and then the sledgehammer verses of Lee Dorrian kick in. The lyrics are also warm and hateful towards some deluded doom-head. The song grabs you by the throat and doesn’t let go – there are no lite moments in this one. It is also very long – 8:56. It is followed by another winner, “Requiem For The Voiceless”, which is about cruelty to animals – the lyrics are angry and righteous, and the song thundrs in holy manner. It starts off with a weirdly distorted soundbite, then goes into a weird droning lilting verse series, sweeping up eventually into a cool bridge that goes long. “I cannot hate you, I have not the energy.” It’s a sweet call to action and a return to the Cathedral tour de force of earlier years. Beautiful. “Set me free, humanity/ I have no voice, won’t you please help me.”

“Journey into Jade” is a corny piece of music, where Lee Dorrian runs through the history of Cathedral, from album to album.  ”Twenty year it’s been, what does the future bring?” The music is hard and crunchy, it goes on and on. Very nice. The band here plays a “hidden song” trick, so the timing of the last song isn’t really 10:37, it’s more like 6:30, with four minutes of silence, and then Dave Pratchett is to be heard talking about his album art for one minute.

I see this as the usual Cathedral theme of life beginning and life ending… with religion in the middle fucking things up… but we manage to survive despite the abuse of the ideas of religion. So you have the beginning of life, with all of the hopes and aspirations; and all the insects protecting a baby, which represents the beginning of life, and then you gradually evolve into the mess we’re in now. But fortunately, when the apocalypse comes along, nature will take over yet again, and we’ll begin again, and a whole new evolution of spring’s life. We’ll have a start, a middle, and an end, and then we’ll do it all over again, probably; but I’m not going to live to see it.

Yay, Dave, go go!

EWBM

EWBM

Electric Wizard, “Black Masses”: The opening track, “Black Mass” is crazy heaviness, with insane singing and beautiful dirge-like fuzziness. “Venus in Furs” is a much better track (it has nothing to do with the Velvet Underground song, by the way, other than the title, seemingly inspired by the same book), with the warped fuzz stoner sound, the clinging riff, the insane sneering vocals, the haunting, sweeping solo guitar crunching across soundscapes of stoner grunge, with strange voices floating and sweeping. Wild, crazy, intense and beautiful. Definitely one of the best songs on the album. “Night Child” wafts and wails, but it’s nothing special.  ”Pattern of Evil” is wicked, stuttering soundfulness, shimmering and shammering off the walls of my mind. Next. “Satyr IX” boogies with weird bass doodlings, before building up to a freaky and insane buzz-out that just goes on for ages and ages and ages. It’s total rock ‘n’ roll. “Turn Off Your Mind” has a wicked mid-paced riff that just gouges and tears at your brain until it’s stripped bare. Strange, heavenly, the end is a sweet stereo swirl. What a crazy track!! “Scorpio Curse” is a wicked rocker that rolls and rolls and roll and rolls, with sweet flanging effects. Great stuff. “Crypt of Drugula” is a sort of weird sound-out that just goes on and on and on and on. With “Black Masses”, Electric Wizard simply just delivers and delivers and delivers and delivers and delivers and delivers and delivers and delivers and delivers and delivers and delivers and delivers and delivers and delivers and delivers.

The album art is full of nudity and occult images, it’s kind of creepy actually…

If you don’t feel like buying it, you can listen to the whole album online.

Movie reviews:

T

T

Thor – Great fun! And who cares if Kenneth Branagh has lowered himself to doing Marvel Comics adaptations after having once been in the lofty heights of producing Shakespearean theatre – the film has everything you’d find in a Shakespeare production, including battle helmets and cod pieces. Chris Helmsworth makes a great Thor (blonde, big, lots of doughy muscles and a bit dopey to match), Anthony Hopkins makes a great Odin (grim, imperious and iron-hearted), and Tom Hiddleston makes a great Loki (sneaky, slinky and possessed of a wicked grin). Like most other Marvel Comics movie adaptations, this one bears a lot of similarity with the original comic, while also diverging from it. Sure, Jane Foster was Marvel’s most boring character in the original ’60s comics, while in the year 2011 she’s become an astrophysicist played by Natalie Portman (?!?), and we can skip (for the most part) that whole Dr Donald Blake thing – make fun of it, even – and just carry on with our day.  Hooray!  Thor gets banished to Midgard (our muddy old Earth) and he makes friend (and lovers) with his charm. He confronts some sort of destroyer drone, then goes nutso on heaven and earth in a war on sneaky ice demons. Great fun. Still, though, I don’t know who the actor Stellan SkarsgÃ¥rd is, nor the film character he plays called “Erik Selvig.” Is he important? And why does he seem to have such a crucial role in the upcoming The Avengers movie, as seen in the brief mini-scene that follows the credits where he (and Hiddleston) appear with film legend Samuel Jackson? Don’t get it, not really.

Banks at Risk

Friday, May 6th, 2011

Hooray, hooray, my book is out!  Banks at Risk, with contributions from 10 of the biggest names in finance, whether they be regulators, bank CEOs, association heads, infrastructure leaders or risk managers!

The people who are in the book are:

- Liu Mingkang, the chairman of the China Banking Regulatory Commission, and the man who keeps an eye on some of the largest and most systemically important banks in the world
- Eric Rosengren, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston
- Jane Diplock, former Chairperson of the International Organisation of Securities Commissions and the former head of New Zealand’s securities commission
- Jose Maria Roldan, head of banking supervision at the Bank of Spain
- Dick Kovacevich, former Chairman and CEO of Wells Fargo Bank, one of the most highly respected bankers in the world responsible for putting together one of the world’s best banks
- Mike Smith, CEO, ANZ Group, who was previously also the head of HSBC’s Asia Pacific operations
- Shan Weijian, CEO, Chairman and CEO of Pacific Alliance Group and former senior partner of TPG Capital (and before that Newbridge Capital), a highly-respected private equity specialist who has worked on milestone investments in Asian banks, such as Korea First Bank, Shenzhen Development Bank, Taishin in Taiwan, and many others
- Rob Close, former CEO, CLS Group
- Tham Ming Soong, Chief Risk Officer, United Overseas Bank in Singapore
- Tsuyoshi Oyama, former head of risk assessment division in the international affairs division of the Bank of Japan

I got my 20 copies of the book today when I returned from a business trip to Hong Kong.  There I am looking a bit tired and worn out, but loving the fact that there are 21 books with my name on it in the apartment! Wheeeeee!!!!

So, it’s back from the printers and getting circulated.  Now the real hard work begins -sales and distribution!!

Peter, Banks at Risk

Peter, Banks at Risk, 2011

Peter Hoflich, Banks at Risk

Peter Hoflich, Banks at Risk, 2011

Peter Hoflich, Banks at Risk

Peter Hoflich, Banks at Risk, 2011

Peter Hoflich, Banks at Risk

Peter Hoflich, Banks at Risk, 2011

The last time I brought a book out was 2008, when Zen was only seven years old (he will be 10 this year). Here’s a reminder of what those crazy days were like:

Peter Hoflich, Banks at Risk

Peter Hoflich, Asia's Banking CEOs, 2008

Peter Hoflich, Banks at Risk

Peter Hoflich, Asia's Banking CEOs, 2008

Peter Hoflich, Banks at Risk

Peter Hoflich, Asia's Banking CEOs, 2008

Peter Hoflich, Banks at Risk

Zen, Asia's Banking CEOs

Zen, holding Asia's Banking CEOs, 2008

Peter, Naoko and Zen checking out Asia's Banking CEOs

Peter, Naoko and Zen checking out Asia's Banking CEOs in 2008

My in-laws digging my book...

My in-laws digging my book in 2008...

Hong Kong trip

Friday, May 6th, 2011

Cool, I just got back from a business trip to Hong Kong. This was an unusual and interesting first for me – someone had contacted me about joining a panel in a session on risk and regulation at a conference and they were paying to fly my out; by coincidence, I happen to be having a book on risk and regulation called Banks At Risk coming out (more on that later), so they ordered copies for delegates to receive (yay… sales!). It literally left the printers on April 28th, and made it to Hong Kong just in time. for the May 5th event. Whew!!

It has been a crazy week – Monday had been a national holiday; I had a magazine that was nearly ready to go to print that I needed to get done before I flew off to Hong Kong on Wednesday afternoon, so that meant that Tuesday would be a long long day. And it was – I got to the office at 8:30, two or three unexpected problems came up that delayed things, and finally I finished my work for the day at 3:00 AM. Ughhhh… Wednesday I slept in a bit and was planning to just do a few things, such as check the last minute printouts at around noon and then go to the airport, but sure enough there was another office crisis and I had to go in there for a few hours to solve that. Ughhhh… But I got to the airport on time, no problem.

These days, though, I find that a lot of strange new layers have been added to airport security. Like, I got through the automatic customs (you scan your passport’s photo page and give a thumb print), but then when I was through to the other side, there was a security guy there to check my passport and boarding pass again. Why was the double-check needed? I don’t know. I asked the guy why he’s checking my passport even after the machine did that and I gave my thumprint, but he said that they’re doing it for everyone. I wonder if there’s someone out there who’s a dangerous criminal who has the ability to fool the system… or I wonder if the system has been proven to be faulty and unreliable recently? Oddly, they only had this in place for people leaving the country – when I returned to Singapore on Friday, passports were not double-checked on the other side. Weird, right? Why would customs checks be more stringent for people leaving Singapore than for people going in? (Ironically, I also noted that the queue to get into Hong Kong moved much more quickly than the queue to get out of Hong Kong)

Then I got to my departure gate, and I went through security, put my bag through the x-ray and walked through the metal detector. I had not bothered to remove my belt, which has a metal belt buckle, so of course the metal detector beeped and I got a pat-down. Then they wanted to inspect my bag – I guess the x-ray wasn’t thorough enough… the message here seems to be that our technology/the person running our technology is not to be trusted, which is a worrying sign. Then they used some sort of a cloth to wipe my brand new laptop bag and the book I had been carrying… which I had just bought five minutes earlier! I asked them why they were wiping down a laptop bag that had never left Singapore and a book that I had bought in the airport five minutes earlier, they said that they were checking for dust for narcotics or explosives or other illegal materials. Seems like they didn’t find any (how could they have?), so I could board my flight. But not so fast – there were two uniformed security guards there who needed to see my passport and boarding pass. Wow! I asked them why they needed to see my passport and boarding pass when I”d already shown it to so many people along the chain, they said something like “somebody could have switched it with you between the last time it was checked and here.” Sure, this could happen; Ozzy Osbourne could also appear out of a drinking fountain, flying monkeys could come in through the ventilator shafts, bats could fly out of my ass… But maybe there’s a deeper meaning to all this, perhaps there’s some sort of killer on the loose, I hope nothing bad happens. I said something like “wow, I didn’t realise that Singapore was such a dangerous placde,” and they laughed, gave some sarcastic point, dismissive, like their presence there wasn’t a bit… unsettling… worrying… odd. The whole situation was really weird. I took my flight, which wasn’t so fantastic, but I did get a chance to listen to some good new releases: PJ Harvey (“Let England Shake”), Iron Maiden (“The Final Frontier”), Ozzy Osbourne (“Scream”) and Motörhead (“The Wörld Is Yours”). Vive la rock!!

Got to Hong Kong, went to the hotel, and chilled out a bit. I ordered a DVD player, so that I could watch a Boris DVD that I had brought, and an iPod dock, so that I could listen to the Butthole Surfers and Black Sabbath, but neither bit of equipment worked well. Oh well.

Thursday I woke up early. The view from my room, looking out on the harbour from the 25th floor, was spectacular, but a bit marred by the heavy smog that had drifted in (see photos below – it was thick on Thursday, but thinned out a bit on Friday). Apparently, 40% of China’s economic output (i.e. manufacturing), happens just across the border from Hong Kong so that means there’s a lot of factory belch drifting over. Went for a swim, went for breakfast, met a friend, prepared for my talk, hung out with cool conference people, saw more friends, got a hold of copies of my book, joined a panel in a breakout session, hung out with my cool friends from SWIFT, dealt with office stuff by email, discovered that emails I was writing weren’t being sent (?!?!?!?). Had a splitting headache, which is not normal for me, it had lingered for most of the day – wasn’t sure if it was too much coffee, or if I was coming down with a cold, or if the China smog was getting to me. Headed off to the great old poolside party at 7:00, had a beer, and my headache was gone! Spent the night talking to funky weird cool people, met the DJ, talked music, hung out, drank a lot of beer, and slept at 1:00.

Friday I woke at 7:00, took another pic of the view from my room (see comparison photo below), ate, packed, met my great friend Adrian to catch up, gave him a copy of the book too, and chilled out on the train to the airport listening to Butthole Surfers. At the airport, the problems started again – I checked in, then went through customs. The queue to get out of Hong Kong seemed to be much slower than the one to get in. Again, I was surprised that it’s so much harder to leave a country than to enter it, but whatever… I passed through security, and this time I took off my belt so that the metal detector wouldn’t ting; it didn’t, but for some reason I got patted down anyway (it was actually a very attentive, sensuous patting down, quite odd…). This was a first for me, because usually if the metal detector doesn’t ping it means that the person isn’t carrying anything worth worrying about, but I guess nowadays a home-free from a metal detector doesn’t mean anything. What wasn’t a first was that they again brushed my computer for micro-particles. What’s up with these injections, inspections,
detections and neglections? Very very very strange.

The flight back to Singapore was pleasant, for a change, and I listened to AmiYumi, Aco, Madonna Bossanova, and a selection of J-Pop, which was nice. In Singapore however, it got weird again – as I was going through the “nothing to declare” zone of the departure area, I was once again pulled into a random check, hot on the tail of five people who weren’t pulled in. With all of these checks, I guess I’ve been profiled as one of those dubious “guilty until proven innocent” types. No harm done, of course, since I never have anything in my luggage that I’m not supposed to have, but it does make me feel like I’m being harassed as a traveller, and that the systems and processes at the airports in Singapore and Hong Kong have so many weak points as to make double-checks and triple-checks necessary (or, that some sort of psychological show of force is suddenly required to pre-empt something that’s been in the whisper network – oooh, spooky). It makes me want to travel as little as possible, even though I do enjoy flights, I enjoy meeting new people, and I get a lot out seeing how things work in other countries. I would think that the airlines that I use are happy to take my money to get me from point A to point B.

Got home, had a nice time with Naoko and Zen, watched some episodes of Space:1999, and didn’t get to sleep early (although Naoko and Zen did…).

Hong Kong, Thursday morning

Hong Kong, Thursday morning

Hong Kong, Friday morning

Hong Kong, Friday morning

Hong Kong Thursday morning

Hong Kong Thursday morning

Hong Kong, Friday morning

Hong Kong, Friday morning

Mah room

Mah room

Mah room's bathtub fittings

Mah room's bathtub fittings

Me!!

Me!!

Shepherd’s pie!

Sunday, May 1st, 2011

Hi, guy, we had a shepherd’s pie!  It was high as a fly in the sky! Yummy!!

Yum yum yummy!

Yum yum yummy!

Yum yum yummy!

Yum yum yummy!