We like to duet duet (sung to the Madagascar tune "We like to move it")

Finally, Will.I.Am has met up with Fergie.

Mr. MyHump has finally met up with cousin and they finally manage to practise the whole song, My Hump, without the usual jeering from the K-gang about 'The Market song". (The K-gang always laugh at the song being a "See Hump" or "Lala" (cockles and muscles in Cantonese) song.

And MC was all smiles when cousin says he's a real "singer" and continued to sing his chinese songs without having to fight with CK and D.

This isn't a very funny blog, because the 2 male "singers" were really serious about this practise session and cousin was totally lost because she has never heard of those old school songs belted out by the 2 "male singers".

So, she and I just continue to find new K songs (boy, I just realised she's good at bringing forth those powerful R&B songs).

It was a duet day, where we all practised mostly duet songs..Most fruitful for Mr.MyHump where he duet with cousin (My Hump), with myself (Come what may) and with MC (Dao Lang's chinese songs)... even Cousin and I having a duet song for ourselves... the old school "Top of the world" hahaha...

MC and I, however, didn't have enough time to practise our duet... as the karaoke kicked us out before our song came on...

Well, it's alright, don't think it'll be long before we have another duet session.... :) And I am sure we all had fun during the "high-tea* cum gossip" session with the "Lobster" and the "what happened to your face!"stories. hahaha

*Note: our high-tea doesn't refer to the afternoon hi-tea buffet at hotels. It refers to our high class tea sessions, a phrase coined by our teaman, err... Keyman. hahaha.

First time on stage

All the practice sessions in the karaoke did not prepare me for the embarassment which I brought upon myself last Saturday. I was literally forced to duet with a fellow colleague on stage to help foster better relationships within the team. Team building it seems. Somehow, I just get a feeling I was being conned - you know, like the famous cantonese saying, "being put on a table" (Umm, this has slightly different meaning from the English Idiom, "putting someone on a pedestal" (which has a good meaning). The Cantonese version refers to putting someone in a spot and subsequently forcing him to do something unwillingly where the task is totally non-beneficial to him whether or not it is performed). While it was a good experience, I cant forget how my hands shivered as I held the microphone on my right hand. I had to grasp it with both hands to stop it from being obvious. Now I know why people use both hands when they sing in a competition... ahahaha..

And it all started so badly that I fumbled on the first 2 lines. I was too playful and concentrated in trying to make my duet partner mess up his lines that I messed up my own lines. I was teasing him asking him to put in more feelings... and laughing to distract him but he was good... he didnt get distracted nor panicked. Yours truly, however, was so panicked that I forgot the whole tune ahahah.... The song was "When I fall in love", by Nat King Cole and Natalie Cole. ("Dont even think about trying Celine Dion's version", I warn myself!) Not a difficult song at all but if you do not know how to bring out the best of the song, it'll sound as boring as watching grass grow...

And to think that my cousin's band wanted to use me as their back up lead singer last time (I can't be the lead singer because I can't be commited to the band :P - well, you know, with big B and little b, I can't go for practises and gigs as often as I wanted....). I think they must have thanked their lucky stars for not being serious about their band... hahahah...

Oh well, it was a boring first time... A line that Macau Tycoon Stanley Ho's daugther Josie Ho said during the Forbes interview repeats in my head. Btw, Josie is 8th in Forbes Billionaire heiress list and is the only Chinese on the list. She said, "I stopped my singing career after singing very badly off key on stage..... but my friends encouraged me not to give up...."

So.... if you think you have rid of me and no longer have to fight me for the mic in Karaokes, you are dead wrong.... ahahahaha Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go practise my vocal chords..:) La la la la la la la....

The K-Gang

Went to karaoke again, by popular demand of the K-gang. For RM36.80*, you could eat, drink and be merry ….and see quite a lot of things….

It was hell of a fun night (even though I sang a few songs less due to numerous calls from office regarding a batch job error)… laugh until I had stomach ache (serious, but was fine after a cup of hot milo)… I am broke, but I am happy… Err....can I pay later? (Mr My Hump: Haha nice try...)

Thank you for being my friends, y’all. You certainly painted my life colourful.

*Pay to Mr. My Hump.

Here's a rollcall for those who went:

Mr. Beauty Pageant Winner: Carefully paced himself to eat and drink first before singing “impact songs”. Great voice after a few drinks. However, tend to sing very sad and old songs. After heeding advice from Mr. Hacken Lee fan, he can sing a “break-up” song while jumping and clapping happily. Have to become the “lips” for Miss Wrong Lyrics as she depends on the movement of his lips to sing those Chinese songs. He must be thinking Miss Wrong Lyrics must be deaf or something. Well, he’s right, she’s tone-deaf.

Mr. Hacken Lee Fan: Can sing any song – in and out of key. He can sing duet – with both guys and girls. He even sing both the guys and girls part… He learnt a new thing yesterday that the “red” lyrics are actually meant for female singing. He is allergic to old songs – self denial that he’s an oldie himself.

Mr. My Hump: Practiced the song My Hump since the last karaoke session and can finally sing the whole song rapping non stop. Enjoyed singing all those X-rated songs such as Girlfriend, Doncha, Fergalicious, London Bridge but denied that he chose those songs. Hello- the songs don’t just get chosen by themselves, ok…
Also manage to sing a Chinese song which he had practiced very hard – “Special Love for Special You” although you can only hear him singing the first line of the chorus while the rest of the song is a drone coz he forgot most of the lyrics…

Mr. Shy Guy aka Bachelor Boy: Can sing a lot of songs well but chose to be quiet, hoping to project a strong silent type image and also to hide his true age. However, when he sang Cliff Richard songs (probably trying to follow his footsteps to be an evergreen Bachelor Boy)… everyone could guess his age. Mr. Shy Guy caused Mr. Hacken Lee Fan to sneeze non stop due to the “dust” emitted by old songs.

Miss D24: Didn’t sing the whole night except for some humming and lip synching. I suppose she cannot kick the office habit of humming and lip synching . She wanted to sing “Green Green Grass of Home” for Miss GGG but is too shy. She needs more K sessions to build her confidence.

Miss GGG: She’s green but definitely not raw in singing, being able to sing all the current hits. Conjured up a fan club right after she stepped into the K box. Can duet with Mr. Beauty Pageant Winner and Mr Hacken Lee Fan nicely – that’s after Hacken Lee Fan learnt not to sing her part as well. She complained that she hasn’t heard of most of the songs that Mr. My Hump and Mr. Beauty Pageant Winner sang. So you know the generation gap there…

Miss Wrong Lyrics (Yours truly): Learnt some new Chinese words. All these while she’s been singing Chinese songs to wow her non-Chinese speaking friends not knowing that she has got the lyrics ALL WRONG. Created hell lots of jokes due to all the wrong lyrics, much to the chagrin of the people hearing her singing as wrong lyrics is just as bad as bad song pitching. She definitely must update the lyrics in her PDA.
Oh, this lady doesn’t really need the lyrics from the Karaoke projector TV because she reads the pinyin lyrics from her PDA phone. She probably needs myopic glasses soon due to too much stress in reading the fine letters.

And here is the one who didn't go:

Mr. Aeroplane Jet: We learnt a new thing today – The Aeroplane Mode function on your PDA phone. When you decide to “fei kei” (stand up) your friends on an appointment, you can just press this function and it’ll send a message automatically to all the people in the forum to indicate that your “jet” has arrived. Mr. Aeroplane Jet stood us up last minute telling us that he has forgotten all about our outing. Hrrrmmmppfff shows how important we are… Well, still okay lar, at least this time he remembered his manners and informed us. Well, the K-gang still insist that they want me to “sing” bad you in my blog….muahahaha

And here are some who wanted so badly to go but couldn't make it:

Mr. K-Desirer: Want to sing K day and night. Day Day ask us to organize K session. Even suggest K-Lunch but we are not professionals and have no prior formal training, so we can’t K so much. Mr. K-Desirer is a living example of a person who cannot get the things he desired too much. This is the 2nd time we organized a K-session but he is away on business trip. So we know he'll have to sing these 2 songs in the next K-session - “Desperado” (English) and “Ming Lui Yau See Chung Sui Yau” (If you are destine to have something in life, you’ll get it eventually) (Cantonese by Sam Hui)

*Note: Don’t worry lar, there’s still 2.5 bottles of liquor waiting for you. We’ll definitely have another K-session- just for you. (coz Mr Beauty Pageant Winner says that he cant shine without you.. muahahah)

Mr. Football Drunken Master: He was too drunk to join us because he was beaten like Liverpool* and Chelsea**. KO after being beaten by other fellow players.. err… drinkers on Sunday night after the 2 Premier League games. I think his initial ambition was to be a goalie coz I heard that he was found drunk - lying curled up in front of his back door, beside the trash bin – much like a goalie after a great penalty catch. Hmmm.. we now know what he must be dreaming of then – but his wife dreams were cut short when she had to retrieve him from the trash. Wonder where he slept for the rest of the night… Must have been a hard night since he had to call in sick….hahahahahah

*Liverpool vs MU 0-1
**Chealsea vs Arsenal 0-1

Karaoke Keng... (Farewell to our friend...)

Thank You very much, Peter for the fun time at BTS Neway... We wanted to repay you with some songs, but you had to leave early.. awwwwwwwwww.... In fact, almost all the songs which we sang after you left, were dedicated to you:

1) LKS & Patrick - My Hump and Fantasy

2) Kelly & Chee Keen - Harlem Yu's "It's fated (that we met u)"

3) Deric and Lwee - The Eason and Vivian Chow song - "Love you too late"

Till the next time, Farewell old friend...

Ching Ai De Ren (亲蜜爱人) - My Dear Loved One

I am suddenly smittened by this song, Anita Mui's Ching Ai De Ren (My dear loved one). Actually I heard it over an audio file called High Society Shanghai Divas. It featured jazz versions of a lot of Mandarin songs and I loved them. I dont read chinese and hardly speak it but I am trying very hard to learn this song. The teasing, tempting, soothing sound of the Shanghai Diva who delivered this song really made me fall in love with this song...

I don't have the audio file version but here's a version from Anita Mui which I found in YouTube.... I have even attached the lyrics below in case you wanna sing along...just like me.... hahaha

梅艳芳 亲蜜爱人

今夜还吹着风

想起你好温柔

有你的日子分外的轻松

也许是无影踪

只是想你太浓

怎么会无时无刻把你梦

爱的路上有你

我并不寂寞

你对我那么的好

这次真的不同

也许我应该好好把你拥有

就像你一直在为我守候

亲爱的人 亲密的爱人

谢谢你这么长的时间陪着我

亲爱的人 亲密的爱人

这是我一生中最兴奋的时分

========My own pin yin translation ===========

Ching yeh hai chui zhe fung
Siang chee ni hao wen row
Yow ni de re zi fen wai de ching sung

Yeh woo shi woo ying chung
Chi shi siang ni thai nung
Zhem mo hui wu sei wu ke pa ni mong

Ai de lu sang yow ni
Wo ping pu zee mou
Ne tui wo na mou de hao
Che zhi chen de pu tong
Yeh shue wo ying kai hao hao pa ni yung you
Chiu siang ni yi zhe zhai wei wo sou hou

Ching ai de ren ching mi de ai ren
Sheh sheh ni zhe mer chang de shee jen pei zhe wo
Ching ai de ren ching mi de ai ren
zhe she wo yi seng chong jui shing fen de shi fen.

Malaysia's 50th Merdeka

30 August 2006:

Today is the eve of Merdeka day. Bryan’s kindergarten is teaching them harmonious cultural exchange (muhibbah) by asking each and everyone of the children to wear their traditional costume to school. It’s optional so I allowed Bryan to go to school in his uniform which wasn’t a good idea as it made him feel like the odd one out. Then my son asked the teacher to call me to bring his traditional costume to school to let him change. Since I thought it would be cute to let him wear the Punjabi costume which he made for last year’s concert, I brought his “National Costume” to school and helped him change. The teacher told me that the RTM crew would come over to film them. Hmmm, no wonder the teacher obliged to Bryan’s request to call me. By making Bryan wear the traditional costume, it also helps to advertise….

Anyway, it was so cute to see them all so pretty and handsome all dressed up. And they were so excited that there’ll be a party as one girl in Bryan’s class was going to celebrate her birthday in school today. I wished I could stay to share this part of childhood memory with Bryan but I had to leave for work. Childhood memories are the best part of our memories for most of us. Life was simple and carefree. I was recently brought back to memory lane during a Karaoke session with Carmen, my cousin who spent most of her growing up years in my house as my mom babysat her and her brother. We were singing songs which we sang a lot in our childhood…. Like Spice Girls. Boy, I couldn’t stand straight due to too much laughing after rendering the Wannabe song with her. Didn’t realize that they used so much “Huh Huh Huh” and “Slam Slam Slam” in their lyrics. And she really blew me with the “Tuna Taka Wee Wee” tune (from Beyond’s AMANI) when we tried to find for some Chinese songs. Neither of us read Chinese you see.

We used to have a mini band that consist of Carmen (lead singer), her brother (Drummer) and myself (Guitarist/Singer) and tried to mimic songs from Beyond. Ironically, Mun (Carmen’s brother) really went on to form a REAL band as a drummer. (see, who says childhood games are useless!) We had a good laugh as we wondered why on earth we liked those guys with hairdos (long, curly and combed to one side! Go see Paul Wong in some of Beyond’s old music videos to see what I mean) and had small eyes and wear crummy snowcaps.

We were reminded on how we practice “seconds” while bathing (we had 2 adjacent bathroom in my mom’s house and we’d be occupying both and singing duets acapella ahahah). We sang Top of the World and Especially for you, with “high class precision” due to those “years of training” hahahaha.. Oh, ‘Top of the World’ reminded me of something funny. Kee, my colleague, told me that he hated Karaokes because he was so sick of everyone singing oldies such as My Way and Top of the World. And I told him, “Don’t worry, come to Karaoke with me and I GUARANTEE we wont sing these oldies….”

Incidentally, when I went into the Red Box karaoke with Carmen that night, under the “hit charts for the day”, in between “Umbrella” and “4 in the morning”, was “MY WAY”. And guess what, I accidentally pressed MY WAY as our first song when my intention was Gwen Stefani’s “4 in the morning”! And my cousin looked at me with a weird look and I couldn’t help laughing and told her about Kee. See, Kee you’re famous now. And yeah, true to Kee’s words, Top Of the World was also in the “Hit Charts List”… hahahaha Both of us vowed to change Kee’s mind with our version of Top of the World…. (Don’t play play, practised since we were in our teens!!! hahahaha)

It was really refreshing to sing these old songs after struggling to do Beyonce’s Irreplacable, Akon’s No Matter, PCD’s Doncha, Rihanna’s Umbrella and Gwen’s “Sweet Escape”. I cannot remember having a more wild and fun time at a Karaoke than that night with all the “Slam Slam Slam” and “Uhuh Huh Huh” …Yeah, these 2 shameless Divas really shouted our hearts and voices out.

18/11/2005 - Mun's Bday@Redbox SgWang
Ok ok to be fair to my other Karaoke kakis, I did have a lot of fun with Mun and his friends (especially the Lau Hung Qook whereby the music video takes a satirical look at Karaoke goers) and also enjoyed the sessions with my (ex) colleagues who always makes the atmosphere lively with their playful mic and remote control hogging (I won’t write about Karaoke ethics as Winnie has already done that in her blog…) and even dancing! And of course with Brandon who is always courteous and claps for everyone no matter how badly they sing (esp yours truly)! And I would never forget the fun-filled times with my ex-MBA classmates who enjoyed singing all sorts of Muhibbah songs as a way to release “assignment and exams” stress…

Happy Merdeka Day to one and all…. Muhibbah Selalu! (Viva la Harmony)

Note: 18 Dec 2004 (Khoo's farewell) @ Redbox HLA

Mandy Moore singing Umbrella

I just simply love Mandy Moore's cover version of Rihanna's umbrella. It's like an unplugged version... so romantic.. :) I am a sucker for romance... And Mandy's sentimental version made me understand what Umbrella was all about - about ALWAYS being there to protect the one you love most... And I think that's beautiful...




The original singer Rihanna and her umbrella




Umbrella Lyrics in case you wanna sing along.. :)

You have my heart
And we'll never be worlds apart
May be in magazines
But you'll still be my star
Baby cause in the dark
You can't see shiny cars
And that's when you need me there
With you I'll always share
Because

[Chorus]
When the sun shines, we’ll shine together
Told you I'll be here forever
Said I'll always be a friend
Took an oath I'ma stick it out till the end
Now that it's raining more than ever
Know that we'll still have each other
You can stand under my umbrella
You can stand under my umbrella
(Ella ella eh eh eh)
Under my umbrella
(Ella ella eh eh eh)
Under my umbrella
(Ella ella eh eh eh)
Under my umbrella
(Ella ella eh eh eh eh eh eh)

These fancy things, will never come in between
You're part of my entity, here for Infinity
When the war has took it's part
When the world has dealt it's cards
If the hand is hard, together we'll mend your heart
[ Umbrella lyrics found on http://www.completealbumlyrics.com ]
Because

[Chorus]
When the sun shines, we’ll shine together
Told you I'll be here forever
Said I'll always be a friend
Took an oath I'ma stick it out till the end
Now that it's raining more than ever
Know that we'll still have each other
You can stand under my umbrella
You can stand under my umbrella
(Ella ella eh eh eh)
Under my umbrella
(Ella ella eh eh eh)
Under my umbrella
(Ella ella eh eh eh)
Under my umbrella
(Ella ella eh eh eh eh eh eh)

You can run into my arms
It's okay don't be alarmed
Come into me
There's no distance in between our love
So go on and let the rain pour
I'll be all you need and more
Because

[Chorus]
When the sun shines, we’ll shine together
Told you I'll be here forever
Said I'll always be a friend
Took an oath I'ma stick it out till the end
Now that it's raining more than ever
Know that we'll still have each other
You can stand under my umbrella
You can stand under my umbrella
(Ella ella eh eh eh)
Under my umbrella
(Ella ella eh eh eh)
Under my umbrella
(Ella ella eh eh eh)
Under my umbrella
(Ella ella eh eh eh eh eh eh)

It's raining
Ooh baby it's raining
Baby come into me
Come into me
It's raining
Oh baby it's raining