“I know some dizzy, easy heights
Don’t stop your life at the lights
Don’t be smart, be a beginner
Don’t be wrong, even when its right.”
from “Ordinary Angels”
- Frente!, “Marvin the Album”, 1994.

Yes, I’m 14 years late to discover this album, but well its better late than never. I bought this album this afternoon because I heard this song on the radio yesterday on the way home.

I really like this album. It’s a little quirky, pretty well-produced and the lyrics are beautifully honest. Listening to the album, I imagine sitting at a patio at the Australian countryside on a spring morning, having some freshly cooked bacon, eggs and pancakes. And Angie Hart’s vocals has a very unassuming quality about it. At times, she sounds crisp and clean and other times, unpolished and rough around the edges. I like it when singers sing like this.

Perhaps I have a weakness for female singers who write and perform their own music. I think women capture a particular sensitivity when they pen their lyrics; something that male artistes can’t seem to get across too well. To me at least.

Some of my favorite female artistes:
(all links open in iTunes so you can sample some songs)
Sheryl Crow
Rachael Yamagata
Annie Lennox
Eva Cassidy
Chrissie Hynde, The Pretenders
Suzanne Vega
Edie Brickell
Sarah McLachlan

So tell me, which female artiste do you dig?

OK, here’s two clips of the gig that night. You’ll clearly see that we’re not professionals.

To save you from the agony of trying to decipher the song, the first clip is Doobie Brother’s “Long Train Running” and the second is a medley of “La Bamba” with “Twist and Shout”.

Enjoy.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P46MZMzTMIg&hl=en]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJ0ro-68i78&hl=en]

It’s been really tiring the past two weeks, all thanks to Chinese New Year. Seems like it’s the only time Sarah and I spend time really cleaning the house. It’s really tiring when for two weekends in a row, we were working our butts off but all good now, my pile of laundry on the guest room bed is cleared, windows cleaned, storeroom cleared. And we even got ourselves new curtains and bedsheets, even a brand new high-power hairdryer! (Gotta love the cool air function!)

Anyway, it’s eve tonight and traditionally I’ll stay up as late as I can, as part of the belief that the longer you stay up, the longer your parents will live. Well, since I have my mum AND my birth parents, I think I won’t be sleeping tonight. I’m sitting in my study, wondering WTF happened to Flickr, and also playing my bass to my favorite playlist on iTunes. It’s all the songs I grew up listening to. From Jackson Browne to Heart to Queen to Wham!, this playlist has all the songs that bring back the fondest memories.

Music has this magical way of bringing back flashbacks of moments you thought were gone forever. I remember when I was younger, lying in my room and to these tunes, I wondered if someone somewhere out there was lying in her bed listening to these songs too.

One particular song is a favorite of mine….

Songbird by Fleetwood Mac

For you, there’ll be no more crying,
For you, the sun will be shining,
And I feel that when Im with you,
Its alright, I know its right

To you, I’ll give the world
To you, I’ll never be cold
cause I feel that when I’m with you,
Its alright, I know its right.

And the songbirds are singing,
Like they know the score,
And I love you, I love you, I love you,
Like never before.

And I wish you all the love in the world,
But most of all, I wish it from myself.

And the songbirds keep singing,
Like they know the score,
And I love you, I love you, I love you,
Like never before, like never before.

But now, these songs mean nothing more than just those recurring moments of me staring at a blank ceiling like a blank slate, in a dark room waiting for sleep. Waiting to be found. This playlist is called “You”. Dedicated to you, whom I’ve never met in those years I lay quietly in bed.

I wish I met you then.

I brought my favourite bass home today.

Look closely, isn’t she lovely?

There she lies on my couch…

Then I finally caressed her…

Ahhh………

Too many things swimming about in my head. Where do I begin? OK OK, all bite-sized entries today. I need to sleep.

1. Apple boot camp – Now Windoze users can boot up their favorite OS on a Mac! Old news right? Yeah. Sellout right? Quite. But wait! According to MacNN article and quoting Merrill Lynch, if Boot Camp is able to help Apple make in-roads into the PC market, then it starts to make sense. As according to their analysis model, every point of PC market share gained by Apple translates to more than US$2 billion in incremental revenue.

2a. My colleague left last friday. Despite her persistent attempts to keep us from finding out about where she’s going (“err.. I’m think of moving overseas”), she ended up telling us over a few beers on Saturday. Nice. Well, in case you’re wondering, she’s at Disney channel now.

2b. That also means my workload has effectively doubled. Whoo-hoo!

3. Added a couple of new blogs I read to my list on the right. Go check them out!

4. Updated the photo links on the right, now my dotmac page links to the new one made by iWeb. Personally, I think iWeb is too clunky an application – my system slows to a crawl.

5. Album of the week for me is Depeche Mode’s 101.

Make what you will of my limited thought process. I’m going to sleep.