Sunday, April 8, 2012

Forever yellow skies

I am sure everybody have fond memories of the music of their teenage years. Mine is pretty checkered because I'm a bit of a hipster when it comes to music, even when I was a mega spotty teen. I loathed most of the hit songs when I was 16 but it got better the year I turned 17 when rock music became cool again  thanks to grunge and the second wave of British invasion made its appearance.

When I heard that the Cranberries was going to perform in Kuala Lumpur for their Asia tour, I was totally psyched. The band's albums pretty much provided the soundtrack to various highlights in my life. I fell in love with them thanks to Linger, but the anthemic Zombie was the one that propelled them into rock and roll hall of fame leagues.


The stadium pretty much was shaken to its foundation when this was on.



I think this cements them as a pretty awesome stadium class rock band, don't you think?

Dolores sounds just as good live as she does in the albums; she's not much for audience interaction, but she delighted us all with her trademark hip gyrate, head banging and back-and-forth stiff armed march which was so cute. The rest of the band was equally indefatigable. The fangirls screamed when Fergal Lawler took off his sweat-soaked t-shirt; no surprise since the man is built like a brick shit house. Not bad for a forty-plus dude, eh? I guess bashing the drums do help a man develop his guns (mmm...).

I had teary moments during the first 30 minutes of the concert; it was just unbelievably amazing to be with so many other fans who were also hollering along to the same songs. And just like the Carpenter's song; it truly was  Yesterday Once More.

Monday, April 2, 2012

Eco or echo living?

On Saturday night, everyone was eager to participate in the Earth Hour and plunged themselves into darkness for sixty minutes. Which cannot be too dark what with streetlights and billboards etc. Yes, I am assuming you live in a city or at least the suburbs. It is doubtful anyone who lives in the middle of the jungle bothers very much about Earth Hour.

 See? Not very dark at all.

(Under cut for lengthy rants and a scary video)

Monday ... Monday ...

Saturday, March 31, 2012

Honours or honest degree?


I was amazed when I read this. There are students out there who could afford to fork out two grand for someone else to write their thesis? The mind boggles. My experience of student life (undergrad and postgrad) is one of skimping because even if you get a scholarship, it doesn't necessarily cover all your expenses (my uni is located in Kuala Lumpur).


Are we more morally bankrupt than the people before us? Are the changing landscape of professional development and personal growth pushing us to become more dishonest? Are we just lazier than before?

Who knows. It could be any and all or even none of the above. All I know is that being a teacher at tertiary level just got tougher. I mean, you can identify that the student was cheating, but proving it is something else altogether. So you may have to grit your teeth and just pass the kid anyway even though you know well that he/she couldn't use prepositions properly to even save her/his life. The kid whom you know worked hard, built his/her skill sets to write a darn good thesis got no more than the cheating one because you can't prove how the cheater cheated.

How depressing.

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Midweek sh*ts & giggles ... early-ish.

Death wish

But not the way you think. Chumbawamba, a band that struck supernova-like stardom for 15 minutes in the 90's thanks to this song, actually released a song that reads the passenger manifest of people whom they would like to see die in a plane crash.



Since Ally McBeal made the cut, I daresay it's a pretty good list.