Thursday, April 30, 2009

Registration Info for Singapore Idol 3: AVAILABLE HERE! NOW!

QUIT BEING SINGAPORE-IDLE people, Singapore Idol 3 is here! And here (scroll down la!) is the info, in case you've been searching around and failed to find it. I also have the info for the actual day of auditions, and venue. Click this image for details... or you may squint if you have good eyesight, or a big monitor.



Are you going? Leave a comment if you plan on going, or if you'd be keen on a group Karaoke session to prepare!!!

Meanwhile, just some extra info, taken from http://idol.mediacorptv.sg/

# You must be in line by 8a.m. at the Audition Venue. Registration for the Auditions closes at 6p.m.

# You must register online, then print out the online application form and bring the signed application form (photo included) with you on the day of Registration -- 6 June to the Registration Venue. You must also bring your letter of Confirmation with your reference number on it.

# You MUST bring along a piece of ID that includes a Recent photo. The information provided in the Application Form should correspond with the information provided in the ID. For Singapore citizens please bring along your NRIC. For non-Singapore citizens (including Singapore PR), please bring along your passport.

# Auditions are NOT by appointment, you must come by 8a.m and join the Official Queue.

# Auditions will be first-come, first-seen. It is up to you to decide when to arrive at the auditions. Please anticipate long queues.

# Please remember that the audition process may take up to several hours, so please plan accordingly. Do ensure that you have a hearty breakfast before queuing at the venue, and come prepared for an audition process lasting several hours.

# If you are under 21 years of age as of the date of registration, please ensure that you bring along a letter of approval from a parent or guardian with their signatures. You are allowed to bring a parent or guardian with you, but they will only be allowed into the Reception & Registration Areas, depending on the day's turnout.

# For those over 21, guests will be permitted based on the day's turnout. No guests - family or friends-are allowed into the audition room with you.

# PLEASE COME DRESSED TO IMPRESS, but remember NOT to wear clothes with visible logos, trademarks or offensive language.

# Be prepared to sing two songs of your choice a cappella (without music), one of which must be in English. You will be required to sing a verse and a chorus, but it is good to know the entire song. You must provide the titles of the songs, and the original artistes (singers) to the person judging your performance.

Who's game? What song will you be singing?

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

A Whiff of Scandal: Trysts with Older Women

The Time I Nearly Compromised My Morals With an Older Woman

(Click HERE to go straight to my latest StarBlog Post)

Teaser....

"I was 17 again, and besides having a girlfriend at the time (I can't make out the face in the dream), I was also dating or being toyed with by a brown-haired, rich and curvaceous (can't say anything about the face as I couldn't see it) 32 year old Citibank Priority Banker. No, folks, it was NOT a wet dream. The later parts of the dream took rather embarrassing turns too............"

For the full StarBlog Entry, go to, http://starblog.stomp.com.sg/post.php?blogid=1186

My Experience at RWS Singer/Dancer/Actor Monday's Auditions!

Universal Studios was fishing for talent in conjunction with RWS. The selected few would get a year's performing contract, and the chance to live as a performer, and all that on-the-job free singing, dancing and acting training, and possibly travel the various Universal Studios entertainment resorts! It'd be like the boat I missed with Music and Drama Company during my National Service (CPC bastards didn't want to release me). 

On Monday I responded to the Resorts World Sentosa- Universal Studios casting call. Obviously, as I can only sing and play tennis, I auditioned for a singing role. 

Here are some pictures:


julian wong,rws,Resorts World Sentosa,audition tour
This is me upon arrival at 1015am. The spectacles, you may ask, well, aren't of any degree, but just to give me that added shield from recognition should I embarrass myself (like I eventually did in the dance segment).

rws,audition tour,Resorts World Sentosa
Here's the other folks attending the event. My queue number was number 0087! 87's a nice number.. 8+7=15. 1+5=6. 6=Money!

rws,audition tour,Resorts World Sentosa
There were older folks too..  This 0094 was another example. Eventually the last registrant was like 120 or something... I think they were really expecting thousands.. But if you add in the actor/impersonator auditioneers in the afternoon, still just about 300 people tops... 

The oldest contestant was some 70+ year old man who was there to sing Hokkien songs. S-l-o-w M-o-t-i-o-n Hokkien songs that is. He was swarmed with the various media reporters. I of course, couldn't be bothered to give him additional picture publicity.

Then there was a troupe of multi-skilled folks who were ex Singapore Armed Forces' Music and Drama Company. There were also some breakdancers and blonde professional dancers. 

rws,audition tour,Resorts World Sentosa

It was a rather in-efficiently run audition, as it took over 2 hours to get to my turn. For the earlier parts, there was little movement in the queue, for all of the first hour! I bid my time blogging, trading forex and surfing facebook. 

Then of course some reporter came to interview me as I was so evidently bo-chup about the whole event. I might appear in MyPaper again, this week. Maybe today, tomorrow, or Friday. I don't expect a positive article. LOL! Well, I did already lay out that I wasn't too game for the dance parts which later manifested to be significant in qualification for final selections. At any rate, it's a good preparation for Singapore Idol.

Some other folks were just so freaking trying to hard, and attention seeking. C'mon man, who the hell spends hours warming up vocals? Well this person.. who, did nothing to offend me, other than perhaps pollute my air-space, who cockily replied the registration lady, "I'm a singer-dancer-actress", when asked what she was trying out for.

bhb,ghost of victoria theatre,ugly bitch,rws,Resorts World Sentosa

My first thoughts... Then wouldn't she care more for appearances?- complexion? hair? extra fatty mass? Or did she mean off-season dancer. Well, she did have some trouble getting into a nice split. She was singing the same English Classical stuff Charlotte Church got sick of, over and over again, like no one else was present. Spare me!


Strong vocals, to give fair comment, but even so, just a short 15 minute warmup, or 30 mins tops, good enough! There were many others too who just went on and on repeating their songs. Thankfully, not as loud, but still, I really think singers should preserve themselves for their Golden chance in the audition room. 

So I got through the singing bit easy. I prepared 2 songs, Josh Groban's "You're Still You", and James Morrison's "You Make It Real For Me". I sang the former, as I was told to perform my best song. I took a bit of time fumbling with my Mobile Youtube application on the E71 to find my opening note, and they were getting impatient. But contrary to tales of the judges being hostile and looking no further than the edge of their desks, the judges were all smiles during my performance, and said "Great! We'd like you to stay on for the dance audition up next". 

Surely I could muster an at least passable dance audition? To my benefit, it was a group-scale choreography and not a solo performance. To my disadvantage though, my long break from the dance classes in the gym had degenerated my right foot to a second left one. My dance act was nothing short of preposterous! LOL! And no, they were adamant on having people who could both sing and dance, and they were totally closed to those who could do one thing well at the expense of the other.

The Singer-Dancer-Actress at least was visibly able to learn the routine. Not sure if she eventually got picked though. 

Oh well, so as I told the reporter, the event served as a good lead-up to Singapore Idol. To be told that my singing audition was "great", and to have kapos outside the door praise me on my exit is a confirmation that my efforts since the last Singapore Idol (which I exited Round 3 of auditions) had paid off.

Oh btw, I love Griblit


Sunday, April 26, 2009

My Body's A Year Older Than I Actually Am!

My Body Age Assessment After A Long Period of Slack!

Last Tuesday, I headed down to the Jackie Chan Fitness - California Fitness at Novena Square for my Body Age Assessment. I'm actually in this Blogger's challenge to lower my Body Age over 16 weeks. 

With prior measurement on a friend's bio-impedence machine, and scoring a 31, I figured I stood a very good chance.

However, the Body Age analysis showed that I'm 26! Just a year older than I actually am. I'm kinda happy, but also slightly agitated, as this would mean I would have to lower my body age more than a few years to win.

The reason why, is they actually derive the Body Age from a series of tests. Sure, they did a In-Body Bio Impedence test first, but that's just a reference point. Then, on a Polar Machine (The same folks who were famed for pulse rate monitors):

Test 1: Blood Pressure and Pulse
Test 2: VO2 Max 
Test 3: Strength Test - I needed to pull up hard against these handles. From this point on, there were 3 tries per test.
Test 4: SitUps - Gotta do as many crunches in a minute. Unfortunately a had some Hare syndrome. With a personal best of 81 times in a minute back in Polytechnic days during Napfa test, I was already at a count of 29 with close to 40 seconds to spare. But my unconditioned muscles just couldn't handle the lactic acid, and I did only another 11 in that remaining time! Clearly I've been taking my fitness forgranted for too long!
Test 5: Squat against the wall for as long as you can! I managed 3 minutes. Heard it was already above average. I reckon I can manage more as soon as my left thigh gets stronger. The leg injured by errant bastard driver last year was trembling and threatening to give out on me! LOL!
Test 6: I can't remember what the score was, but I was told it was also an above average distance. Averagely, most guys are rather inflexible at the waist. I'm sure whatever I achieved was with some help from the FusionExcel Quantum Pendant I was wearing. 
Obviously I did my share of other exercises after the evaluation, but here's some pics from the warmdown stretch!

Not exactly the right picture order, but lazy to cut and paste. Here's me doing Calve Raises.
All in a day's work!
Here's a preview of my new Facebook profile pic! My Facebook Profile BTW is athttp://profile.to/JulianW


Thursday, April 23, 2009

Sigh of relief....

Whoopee! The exams are over.. Last night I had my one and only exam paper... finished it 30 mins early. Spoilt my record... damn.

If you don't already know, I have got this "sickening" habit of finishing my exams in half time. 180 minute exam in 90 mins, 120 min exam in 60 mins, and so on. Last night was a 180 min exam in 150 mins. Shit.

Anyway, I'm currently here at California Fitness Novena. Just finished my first official workout as part of my 16 session set as part of a Body Age reduction challenge. 

In Chinese they say 脚软!It was a pure legs and core workout session. The trainer, Thomas, also added that I was doing "Compressed Sets" today, which meant that I would have lesser rest between sets, and thus a higher energy output within a given time frame. "Thank ar..", I thought.. 

Never had such a KILLER workout in years. It surely helps to have a trainer to see me through the training, cos on my own, I'd be clinging too much to my comfort zone to press through intermitten leg extensions, lunges, leg press, squats, abductor training. Not to mention the abs and obliques training afterward. 

The above chunk was written on Friday right after the workout. The procrastinator I am, I'm finishing it up now. And my legs are still aching crazy. I spent the weekend tottering around. I'm at Victoria Theatre blogging to pass time while waiting to audition for a singing role as part of Universal Studios audition tour. 

Will post pics shortly. 






Sunday, April 19, 2009

Makeshift Subscription Landing Page Done!

yay!

Try my new email list! Among other things.. New Domain! www.julianwong.name

Truth be told, I've been procrastinating about putting something up at www.julianwong.name for a VERY long time. In fact, this is not intended as the final result. But this could be, depending how much effort I feel like investing on this site. (YES! This site! For friends keying in my blogger link, you can also try the new domain name!) Btw, the
  • traffic counter,
  • map stats,
  • autoresponder,
  • twitter
are all NEW additions to this site, done like hours ago today. I'm especially excited about the email list application I added. I even created a welcome message for it! Give it a test! Hopefully, I'd have put up the Thank You landing page by the time you do.

Anyway, I feel like promoting this link on my social networking sites from tomorrow.. So I should be doing something about whatever features are missing.

I'm still trying to figure out how to get the fonts and colours in order.. And I wanna add more rainbows to this site. I just don't know why the changes I implemented in the Blogger Dashboard didn't work. Could it be something to do with the XML template I uploaded? Anyone with info, do advise.

Meanwhile, peace out!

And coming up! UPDATES on my RETURN TO BODY TRAINING, as part of CALIFORNIA FITNESS' "Body Age" evaluation and remedy program.

Thursday, April 2, 2009

Ah Huat Durian Seller's Wisdom


"Retailers lose out. Retailers are static. If the customer's don't come, they will close shop soon!"

"In direct selling , you always win. You don't have to wait for the customer. You find the customer."

I never thought of it that way.