Happy New Year - ABBA

Happy New Year everyone! May the coming year be a peaceful and prosperous one. May Malaysia badminton players win more tournaments and good luck to them in Beijing Olympics in August. May all of us stay fit and healthy. May the stock market do better also hahahaha..... Hmmm....there is stil 8 more hours before the clock strikes at midnight. Here's a popular song by the famous Swedish pop group ABBA from their 1980 album Super Trouper.

"Happy New Year"

No more champagne
And the fireworks are through
Here we are, me and you
Feeling lost and feeling blue
It's the end of the party
And the morning seems so grey
So unlike yesterday
Now's the time for us to say...

Happy new year
Happy new year
May we all have a vision now and then
Of a world where every neighbour is a friend
Happy new year
Happy new year
May we all have our hopes, our will to try
If we don't we might as well lay down and die
You and I

Sometimes I see
How the brave new world arrives
And I see how it thrives
In the ashes of our lives
Oh yes, man is a fool
And he thinks he'll be okay
Dragging on, feet of clay
Never knowing he's astray
Keeps on going anyway...

Happy new year
Happy new year
May we all have a vision now and then
Of a world where every neighbour is a friend
Happy new year
Happy new year
May we all have our hopes, our will to try
If we don't we might as well lay down and die
You and I

Seems to me now
That the dreams we had before
Are all dead, nothing more
Than confetti on the floor
It's the end of a decade
In another ten years time
Who can say what we'll find
What lies waiting down the line
In the end of eighty-nine...

Happy new year
Happy new year
May we all have a vision now and then
Of a world where every neighbour is a friend
Happy new year
Happy new year
May we all have our hopes, our will to try
If we don't we might as well lay down and die
You and I

My Only Wish - Britney Spears

I was driving along Miramar road heading home when I heard Britney's cool and catchy Christmas song playing on air. Just when you think Christmas gifts have to come in boxes and purchased, she opts for a true love instead. Hey, can I return my gift card?

"My Only Wish This Year"

Last night I took a walk in the snow.
Couples holding hands, places to go
Seems like everyone but me is in love.

Santa can you hear me
I signed my letter that I sealed with a kiss
I sent it off
It just said this
I know exactly what I want this year.
Santa can you hear me.
I want my baby (baby, yeah)
I want someone to love me someone to hold me.
Maybe (maybe, maybe maybe.) he'll be all my own in a big red bow

Santa can you hear me?
I have been so good this year and all I want is one thing
Tell me my true love is near
He's all I want, just for me underneath my christmas tree
I'll be waiting here.
Santa thats my only wish this year.
oohhh ohh yeah
Christmas Eve I just can't sleep
Would I be wrong for taking a peek?
Cause I heard that your coming to town

Santa can you hear me? (yea yeah)
Really hope that your on your way
With something special for me in your sleigh
Ohh please make my wish come true
Santa can you hear me
I want my baby (baby)
I want someone to love me someone to hold me
Maybe (maybe maybe) we'll be all the love under the mistletoe

Santa can you hear me
I have been so good this year
And all I want is one thing
Tell me my true love is near
He's all I want just for me
Underneath my christmas tree
I'll be waiting here santa thats my only wish this year
I hope my letter reaches you in time
Bring me love can call all mine
(yeah yeah) cause I have been so good this year.

Can't be alone under the mistletoe
He's all want and a big red bow
Santa can you hear me (hear me?)
I have been so good this year
And all i want is one thing
Tell me my true love is near
He's all I want. just for me
Underneath my christmas tree
I'll be waiting here (ohh yeah) santa thats my only wish this year
Oh santa can u hear me? oh santa
Well hes all I want just for me underneath my Christmas tree
Oh I'll be waiting here
Santa thats my only wish this year.

I still believe in you - Cliff Richard

I just love this song. The first time I listened to it was when I was in Singapore. You always get good music on the radio stations there, unlike here in United States. I even tuned in to the stations via internet until they decided to stop the service due to copyright issues with this country. Anyway, enjoy....

I believed in fairy tales
In magic spells and wishing wells
And pirate sails
And once I thought I'd never fall in love
That shows how much I knew

And I believed in superman
In Santa Claus the world of Oz
And wonderland
But one by one those fantasies have failed
While you keep shining through
I still believe in you

Chorus:
I could never doubt your kiss
No other love fills me like this
If you take a chance, you'll see
I believe in you
Believe in me

But one by one those fantasies have failed
While you keep shining through
And I still believe in you

Repeat chorus

Other dreams may turn to dust
But I don't care, if you'll be there
I'll always trust
'cause I believe in all my heart and soul
This dream we share is true
And I still believe in you

The Leader of the Band

Made his stage exit. Dan, thank you for your songs.

And to share his legacy with you, here's a famous song from him that caught my ears years ago.

Leader Of The Band

An only child alone and wild, a cabinet maker's son
His hands were meant for different work
And his heart was known to none
He left his home and went his lone and solitary way
And he gave to me a gift I know I never can repay
A quiet man of music denied a simpler fate
He tried to be a soldier once, but his music wouldn't wait
He earned his love through discipline: a thundering, velvet hand
His gentle means of sculpting souls took me years to understand
(Chorus)
The leader of the band is tired and his eyes are growing old
But his blood runs through my instrument and his song is in my soul
My life has been a poor attempt to imitate the man
I'm just a living legacy to the Leader Of The Band

My brothers' lives were different for they heard another call
One went to Chicago and the other to St Paul
And I'm in Colorado when I'm not in some hotel
Living out this life I've chose and have come to know so well

I thank you for the music and your stories of the road
I thank you for the freedom when it came my time to go
I thank you for the kindness and the times when you got tough
And, papa, I don't think I said 'I love you' near enough
I am a living legacy to the Leader Of The Band




P.S. Thanks CY for the news.

Global Warming

Woah - tackling bigger issues now. It didn't even occur to me that the recent San Diego wildfire has anything to do with global warming until that Japanese reporter suggested to me that possibility. According to some sources, it seems that the frequency of wildfires has been rising in the last decades. Like the 2003 wildfire, some human culprits have been responsible for starting some of the fires. So one can argue that the number of fires have increased because there are more and more sickos who have nothing better to do than to burn down civilizations. Hmm, if you think about it, it makes sense - when it gets too hot, people can do stupid things.

So, how much has the temperature increase? Well, one degree Fahrenheit in the past century. When you consider that the difference in the average temperature between modern times and the last ice age was only about 9 degrees Fahrenheit, one degree is quite a lot. Where did all this heat come from? I think it comes from many sources. We live in a complex, delicate and dynamically changing ecosystem. What this means is that the balance of species - animals and plants, are intricately tied to each other. Just take a look at how certain species of animals and plants are now endangered or extinct due to human activities such as industrial development and pollution. I remember reading somewhere in one of the Scientific American magazines of a strange phenomenon where many 3-legged frogs were found. Roughly, I remember this was the explanation. Researchers discovered that farmers were disposing certain chemicals into the river which flowed into lakes/ponds. Certain types of snails thrived well in these waters. And these snails carry with them some kind of bacteria. The snails are preyed upon by the herons and they drop their pooh somewhere while flying. The pooh contains the bacteria which then wiggles its way into the baby tadpoles body and triggers some genetic change. As a result, a third leg forms.

So, you see, the ecosystem is very complex and delicate. You must have heard many times about the greenhouse effect and the depletion of the ozone layer. Many scientists now agree that human beings are primarily responsible for the change in the average global temperature. We burn forests to clear lands, we burn fuel to travel places, we burn fuel to power up our machineries and equipment. In the end, we suffer from all the pollution (smoke, CO2, dust etc.) - we get all kinds of respiratory ailments and we get hit by freak weathers (flash floods, wild fires etc.) and we are losing some of the important animal and plant species (herbal cures, anti-viral agents etc.). There is a natural balance in the greenhouse gases maintained by the animals, plants, the ocean etc. which is important to keep the temperature nice and warm for everyone to live in. Industrial activities by human beings, however, introduce more carbon dioxide gas and trap more heat in the atmosphere.

To read more about global warming, you can go to here.

We didn't start the fire - Billy Joel

Kids getting smarter

Boy, I must be running out of ideas or feeling really tired. How come? Well, sometimes need to tweak the blog HTML code a bit and trying to start 2 new blogs - getting material, do some research etc. and contemplating whether to use blogger or get my own host. It is really exciting and challenging.

Anyway, a couple of months ago, I was searching youtube for something and found this impressive child pianist. Check it out below. Kids nowadays are so smart. A couple of weeks ago, whenever I wanted to go to the toilet, Zoey would cry when I shut the door. Today, with a grin on her face, she gently pushed the door close for me as I stood inside the toilet, amazed by her gesture. I laughed to myself out of happiness. Then when I opened the door, I saw the agony in her face as she tried to hold herself unsuccessfully from wetting her pants. Well, must be the toilet flush and other sound effects that triggered the unintended response. A-nyway......

Bread

This subject is turning moldy. I had wanted to sing praises about my recently acquired bread machine but the crazy wildfire was chasing everyone out of their homes then. I felt quite guilty taking the bread with us as we snaked our way out of the smoke and leaving the fella behind to face its unknown fate. So much for being an employee (the machine, I mean).

So, I owe you one - the Panasonic SD-YD250 Automatic Bread Maker. Breakfast has never been simpler. I just need to prepare the recipe, put the stuff in and hit the start button. After 4-5 hours, the bread is ready - freshly baked, so nice. I can program it at night to be ready the next morning too. I can add raisins, use wheat or white flour, and I can use the sandwich mode which makes a softer but bouncy texture. There is the rapid bake mode which finishes the process in 2 hours - maybe this is for a single rise. Non-wheat flours only rise once instead of twice like wheat. The bake option takes 5 hours for the entire process; so this includes 2 rises. I would like to be adventurous and try making crossaints and pizzas but I won't have time to blog in that case.




Here's a sample recipe that I have remembered by heart.

For medium size loaf - good for three hungry people for the day:
3Cups Flour
1.5 Tbsp Sugar
1.5 Tbsp Butter
1.5 Tbsp Powder Milk
1.5 Tbsp
1.5 Tsp Salt
1.0 Tsp Yeast
1.25Cups Water

Put everything in except the yeast. A timer will beep to inform you when it is ready for the yeast. Amy was pretty enterprising and use 4 cups of water instead....and we got nothing to eat for that morning. So it is important to put in the right amount of everything. I noticed that the butter makes a difference. I have used 3 different brands (maybe different in the amount of fat per serving) and they gave different textures for the bread. If you are interested in making gluten-free bread, there is a book written by Carol Fenster. She is a well-known expert in gluten-free and wheat-free diets.




There is another type of bread which will never turn moldy. This is Bread - the 70s band that produced hits like "Make it With You", "Baby I'm-a Want You", "Everything I Own", "Guitar Man", "If" and "Goodbye Girl" that I enjoy very much. If I remember correctly, the group stopped in Singapore during their final Bread tour in 1996-1997 and performed at the World Trade Centre, and I was thrilled to watch the concert. Wow, that's 10 years ago already, time really flies. So, without further delay, let's get some susu kacang and listen to some music. Mr David Gates.....

Winter Sonata

A good friend of mine once told me that to have not experienced love is like a tree without flowers or a world without colors. I wonder how many people have experience love before. What does it feel like? Does it make you feel happy? Or does it make you feel sad? Is it a very deep, intense feeling or a steady, okay feeling?

Some people are always chasing after love. For others, love just come to them. I have once asked somebody if it is better to love or to be loved. Her answer was to be loved. What do you think? I had thought before that it must be equally frustrating for someone to be unable to love. You know, that type of relationship where one party is always giving so much. It is as if you are being deprived of the experience to love in return. I guess you only start to miss the person and the relationship when it is no longer there. So elusive this thing called love, isn't it? Perhaps it is when you have experienced a colorless world or a flowerless tree that you begin to understand what love is. Perhaps only when you have felt hurt and lonely that you begin to know what love is and how to appreciate it even more.

There are some really good movies that make you weep to heart's content. Who can forget the movie 'Ghost' (the movie played by Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze - Dirty Dancing and comedic relief provided by Whoopi Goldberg) and that particular heart-wrenching scene with Molly longing for Sam as he makes his exit and the haunting 'Unchained Melody' playing in the background? Korean movie industry is also very good at churning out romantic love stories. I think many of you must have heard of the drama movie - Winter Sonata. It is a tale of two college sweethearts (Kang Joon Sang/Lee Min Hyung and Jung Yujin) who were separated and then reunited many years later in their working lives....not without overcoming many obstacles along the way. There is this other guy (Kim Sang Hyuk) who is also very interested in Yujin. Things got quite complicated when they find out that they could be related to each other. This movie has got great soundtracks like My Memory, Moment etc. and great cinematographies too. I found an essay on google which summarizes why this movie was so popular in Asia, which is an interesting read.

At Susu Kacang Cafe, you can share your views about love or simply enjoy your cup of susu kacang or soybean drink and listen to some good music. Perhaps love is very similar to susu kacang - pure, white and sweet, but if you leave it out for too long, it turns cold, sour and hard.

Enjoy.......

The Door of Life

Here's a nice song a friend recently sent me. It's nice and I would like to share it with you. Enjoy ;)

The Door of Life

When spring comes again, one year will be added;
The scenes reflected before the eyes will be changed slightly.
The innocent and naughty young days have gone far away.
As I sense it now, I am already on the way beyond 50's.

I say it's fun to be 20
You say it's great to be 30
And they say it's lovely to be 40
But I feel it's nice to be 50

With the unbelievable speed, the time has fleeted away.
If I knew it, though small things, all would be kept in mind, said my heart.
The full-bloomed cherry blossoms or the color changed mountain red maples,
Such scenes can be seen how many times henceforth?

I say it's fine to be 60
You say it's alright to be 70
And they say still good to be 80
But I'll maybe live over 90

To open and close the door of the life, every single one thing is so heavy.
For the sake of the beloved ones, every single one should live on.
The blue of your denim will fade increasingly to its beauty.
In the end of this long journey, anyone has some sort of its splendor.

I say it's sad to get weak
You say it's hard to get older
And they say that life has no meaning
But I still believe it's worth living

Mariya Takeuchi wrote and sing the song. This is what she talks about the song:

"Just like denim improves in character over the months and years, I want to be the kind of person who can like myself most at the age I am at that particular point in time. By throwing light on my state of mind as I now enter my 50s, this one song symbolizes the album in the sense that it's a song I could only write now. Also, like denim, which was born overseas and has become an integral part of Japanese daily life, if my music, which itself is based on European and U.S. pop, has drawn close to the daily lives of those who listen to it, I will be happy, and that's another thought I wanted to convey,"