The Revenge of the Underpowered Amp

So my speakers arrived yesterday and I excitedly hooked them up last night to my old NAD 302, which I bought during university days, to test them out. An amp is an amp right, even though it's a mite underpowered (25W per channel, versus my speakers' rating of 100W). Wrong. The minute I typed "underpowered amplifier" into Google, I got a string of strongly-worded warnings about underpowered amplifiers damaging and even blowing good speakers.

The explanation makes the machine sound like a mythical creature straight out of Dungeons and Dragons. Apparently, if the amp is rated low, then the best it can do is whatever volume doesn't produce any distortion (which is very soft indeed in my case). If you make it go beyond its power, the amplifier "clips" the sound (chops off the bass and treble) to keep up the volume (I'm still kinda following at this point). But then check this out, the reluctant amp then takes its revenge by (a) feeding the whole distorted mid-range signal to the tweeter (which dies because it's supposed to handle only high range signals) and (b) magically generating a DC current (??) which eventually kills the all-powerful speakers by burning them up from the inside. Wah, vicious!! Ok, me going down to buy the 80W NAD C352 today.

Are tone controls really that vital?

Ok, so in a moment of madness (not really la... quite considered, bought hi-fi magazine and all), I bought these gorgeous B&W CM1 speakers:



As usual, I had already made up my mind even before going to the shop, which was the swish Monsoon Entertainment Systems at Paragon (owned by mainboard-listed Enzer haha), so I didn't even last all of 45 minutes there. I popped in my requisite "three songs that represent what you normally listen to" ("Nocturn" by Kate Bush, "The Sodom & Gomorrah Show", Pet Shop Boys & "Lights of Te Touan" by Everything But The Girl) and was wowed. Ok, I was more wowed by the speakers' great looks (that yellow coloured kevlar cone will do it for me anytime), but Mr Music Teacher (who had stayed the night) was quite impressed too; so after some half-hearted bargaining, I gladly ponied up the $1,400 and left.

Now for the amplifier, which I think I will buy today (given the speakers arrive on Tuesday).

Will it be the tried-and-tested multi-award winning but slightly ugly NAD C352 (which has treble and bass controls) or the super sleek Audiolab 8000S (which has no awards, costs 2X as much AND has no tone controls because as the salesman put it: "High-end where got tone control one?"). I have to admit that Kate Bush sounded really great on the Audiolab even with lousy $500 Mission speakers, but I'm still worried about whether it will sound as great with my B&Ws (especially since no tone controls means cannot adjust the sound forever). Some more, everyone says that tone controls are only for hi-fi Philistines ("heathens" even, a friend sniffed). I cannot believe how much thought I have given to this in the last 24 hours -- spacing out in the gym, at home, watching TV etc while thinking about it.

On the plus side, I'm actually going to watch Da Vinci Code this afternoon with M., who I recently got to know courtesy of K. M. of course is the local celebrity that I thought was the sexiest guy in Singapore for the longest time (he's No. 2 now), so it's all kinda unreal. I'm wearing my nice underwear just in case :P

Every starfish matters

I don't know if this blog is by a student, but I am very jealous indeed of how, in its own effortless OTT way, it is so beautiful, sad and sharp.

An excerpt:

"Cynical Teacher: My young student, these are games only, and games are for kids. Look at the unadulterated passion of the child running, and the effort he exerts in the gym or training in the hot sun, look at all the tears he sheds when victory is snatched from him, observe how all his world is concentrated, funnelled into this one-moment-in-time when he is more-than-he-thought-he-could-be - look at it all and say with me: "meaningless, meaningless, all is meaningless!" Say with me again, chorusing: "vanity, vanity, all is vanity." Those in the back row, join with me and loudly now: "All this is but a chasing after the wind!"

True Heart Student: How can you think like that? Every starfish matters! Every single one of them! All their strivings and their strengths are trained towards a purity of purpose, a single-mindedness and tenacity of spirit! Heed the call of their dedication! See them rise above themselves to reach for things in their imagination! In this surely there is dignity! "

My bar stalker story

So there I was on Saturday night, sitting and chatting in GB Bar In Ni-chome when someone catches my eye from across the room. "Catching my eye" was quite an understatement actually, he was just plain staring my way.
Ok lots of people stare openly at people in gay bars, but this guy was different. The first thing that struck K.L. and me was how he looked exactly like Ralph Fiennes, the same face, hair, tall lean body and everything. He also had the same extremely intense smoking/piercing look that Ray Fiennes has, very unnerving.

When I got up to wait for my turn to go to the loo, he crossed the bar and stood next to me, just staring straight into my eyes and looking me up and down. I remember thinking: Ok, if you would just stop rudely staring and say hello, I might actually talk to you even though you look as skinny as an Ethiopian to me. But he never did, making it the most awkward two minutes of my life. Later, he just followed me back to my seat at the bar counter and stood menacingly behind me.

"Er... I think you got yourself a stalker. 他站在你后面一直看你ah, 很可怕" said K.L. nervously, looking behind us.
"Ok don't look at him and don't you dare go toilet now!" I hissed.

After a long while, when I didn't respond, he went off back to the other end of the bar but continued staring. I tried not to look at him but kept stealing glances to see if he was still looking at me (does that send the wrong signals, I've always wondered).

Continuing in Chinese so that "no one can understand what we are saying" (haha), K.L. said he felt kinda sorry for him.
"他一定在問自己：我這麼飄亮他為什麼不喜歡我？"

Don't get me wrong. It was my first serious bar stalking incident (one that was this aggressive anyway), but I was quite flattered actually, given that a lot of guys in GB were looking at "Mr Fiennes". I was certainly flattered enough to record this incident here, so as to remind myself always (especially, perhaps, in future after a rejection) that in this whole dating thing which I'm rediscovering, one man's meat really is another man's poison.

Alien Vistas

Hakone Open Air Museum (Hakone)


Prada Building (Aoyama)


Glass Lobby, Tokyo International Forum (Ginza)


Fuji TV Headquarters (Odaiba)

Goodbye Tokyo (for now)

Feeling really quite damaged now this sunny morning that we are due to fly back to Singapore. Too much sex and definitely too much alcohol these past 7 days. Met some really nice people though... big British bear T. and his rich Thai bf J., who then introduced me to their friend N., a very cute and burly 36-year old J-cub who acts like a child all the time (my favourite type obviously). All together amongst the beanbags on the floor of Terry's huge apartment last night, we were like a special meeting of the United Nations haha...

Laundry list of things I bought here:
1. Goodmenwear underwear - 4 pairs
2. Toot underwear - 1 pair
3. Champion T-shirt - 1
4. Baby Milo T-shirt - 1 (with pic of monkey drinking juice out of a straw and looking vexed)
5. Japanese condoms - 3 packs
I am strangely porno- and swimming trunks-free this time, despite it being New Arrivals season.

I will be back. I will definitely be back.

The Old and The New

I was a little apprehensive coming to Tokyo this time. It was, after all, a place that C. and I had discovered together. I figured that I would bring K.L. to all the places that we would go together, like Takashimaya Times Square and Oshman's in Shinjuku, Harajuku/Shibuya, Kichijoji and Daikanyama, and the sheen of all these places would be gone just because it wasn't him that was with me. And so it wouldn't be as fun anymore for me.

Boy was I wrong. Coming to Tokyo with K.L. was the best way I could have learnt to see this amazing city in a different light. In the end, we went to very few of the places that C. and I used to hang out in -- not because I wanted to avoid them but simply because there wasn't enough time. Cooing and fussing over the fabulous boutique buildings in Omotesando and Aoyoma, being blown away by the massive sculpture garden perched on the mountainside in scenic Hakone, covering the ancient and modern in Yanaka and Odaiba and marvelling at the awesome display of glass and steel at the Glass Lobby of the Tokyo International Forum... these are experiences that define the kind of friendship I have with K.L. and would undoubtedly have been different if I had done them with someone else. So now, I have another bunch of good memories to associate with the place -- together with, of course, dozens of pictures of "alien vistas" and the "juxtaposition of the old and the new".

The trip also made me realise once again that I hadn't worked hard enough to make my relationship work with C. On our last trip together, we spent so much time going over old ground in Tokyo and getting bored and irritable with each other. Like so many other aspects of our relationship, I had taken things for granted and simply assumed that he would be with me no matter how routine, familar or boring life had become.

I would have liked to finish this post all clever and wistful like. But tea in Ginza beckons, and also I think I see a cute J-bear here at the Apple store. Must go over and see what he's doing :)

Spring cleaning

Each time I hear senior PAP politicians talk about the forum MM had with young journalists, despite the event being so long ago, a little shiver goes through me. Slowly but surely, people are repeating the line that young journalists are not representative of the general population, because they are "radical", "English-educated" etc. When I read it together with the oft-heard PAP dictum that the media should not be allowed to dictate the political agenda, these comments really worry me.

This is why I was telling a friend the other day that even though I hope the opposition will gain some ground on the PAP, I also want the PAP to win by a fairly comfortable margin, and maybe garner more than 65 per cent of valid votes. If the PAP suffers an embarassingly large vote slide, who knows what sort of "spring cleaning" will be in the offing?

"I know there's feedback that this is overkill, this is typical PAP, we hit too hard, sledgehammer. And one of the reasons why people feel like this is because young intelligentsia, young people, particularly the journalists, they would like the Opposition to win. They'd like to see more opposition. They root for the Opposition. So they are willing to measure the Opposition by lower standards, not quite straight, more or less okay. And that's why they want us to overlook, forgive this honest administrative mistake and not make an issue out of it." - PM Lee, at a lunchtime rally, May 3

On a much lighter (and more interesting) note, I offer my carefully-considered list of top election cuties for GE2006:

1. Perry Tong (WP) - By far the best thing to happen to Singapore politics!
2. Desmond Lim (SDA)
3. Wee Siew Kim (PAP)
4. Sitoh Yih Pin (PAP)
5. Mohd Isa (SDP)