As mentioned I watched at the PLAY! symphony on the weekend in Singapore. It was held at the Esplanade Concert Hall.. or what most Singaporeans refer to as... the Durian due the it's exterior shape design.

I really enjoyed the experience of listening to some of my favorite tunes being played by a live orchestra, but.. since I regularly seek out game music, most of the themes were very familiar to me already but still it was fun to hear a live orchestra play it.

Some notable highlights during the show

It was very exciting that while I was using Pictochat on my DS in the event hall... SOMEONE JOINED THE CHAT ROOM!!! And then another... then another.. it was just like how the bloggers would use the DS's bulilt in Pictochat to communicate with each other during a news conference. And it was also the first time I actually got some use out of the Pictochat app! of course.. once more people starting joining in the chats started drifting to DS r0x and all those PSP users behind me suck territory!

When you have a performance of music that's not dedicated to one particular game, the audience might not be able to relate to it. So while I was blown away by the Super Mario Bros suite, the music from Chrono Trigger while familiar to me just didn't invoke any particular feelings for me.

When they played the music from Lost Odyssey it felt that most of the audience was a bit errr.. unresponsive since.. the game hasn't come out yet at all. And the most funny thing about the performance was, they choose to play clips from the M rated trailer during the performance, I could see the 8 year old in front of me tense up and his guardian adopting an Oh my god, why they heck are they showing this? look. Somehow I think the symphony directed should make the video clips as PG as possible since people of all ages would come to their performances.

The most interesting performance of the night came when they introduced Takenobu Mitsuyoshi to the stage, I wasn't familiar with the name but I was very familiar with his works which included Shenmue and Daytona. And he was there to play on the piano the theme to Daytona. I was wondering if he was going to SING the theme as well but the MOMMENT he opened his mouth and english words came out from him I knew it.. HE SANG ALL THE SONGS IN DAYTONA!! And the momment he started off with Du Du Du Du Du Duuuuuu... DAYTONAAAAAAA!!!!! It's Gonna Be.. DAYTONAAAAAAAAA!!! Oh.. all the memories of power sliding with my friends started rushing back to me!

Ahh.. it was an very enjoyable night indeed.

 So I'm holding down to Singapore for the Play Symphony tomorrow. According to the venue's webpage there doesn't seem to be any strict dress codes that I need to follow ie. jackets, tie, etc. etc. So that's good.. since less clothing restrictions means more people can be exposed to such cultural performances. It also means I get to wear whatever I want.

Yup.. this looks good.. makes a nice statement too. :P

An interesting item on the venue's webpage states that.

Due to artists' sensitivity and copyright issues, cameras, image capturing and recording devices are prohibited within the venues. Patrons approaching the venue with any such recording devices are required to deposit them at the Deposit Facility at the entrance of the venues or at the Mezzanine level Cloakroom.

Err.. there's a seating capacity for 1,811 people in the venue, do they have sufficient logistics to store and retrieve 1,811 mobile phones?

When the system you're responsible for is just one of the many gears in the system, the first thing that you must do when the system fails is ask.. Is it our fault? Never think of blaming the other bits of the system first before confirming that your role in the system is performing as expected. Because somewhere out there people responsible for the other parts of the system will be saying it's YOUR FAULT the system failed and you want to be ready to answer them back with why it ISN'T the case.

I've pretty much set my sights on a new phone already. And it's going to be a Dopod C730, which is already available widely in Singapore already. It's release sibling the C500 is already available here but the C730 is still no where to be seen.

Calls to the local distributor SiS were answered with a simple "We are not bringing the Dopod C730 in due to poor demand of the previous model." to which I wanted to ask.. you bring in the largest, most expensive pocket pc in the world, the U1000 and you decided not to bring in something that more people would actually buy?

Feeling bummed about the whole thing I made up my mind to get the C730 in Singapore while I'm down there this weekend for the Play Symphony concert. But first I needed to get my equipment ready, I had to go to a Maxis centre and upgrade my SIM card to a 3G compatible one.

Then.. cause I am using a 3G card I needed to use a different set of GPRS settings when connecting to the traditional GPRS/EDGE data networks, so I went to the Maxis site to look for them and I stumbled into their phone configuration SMS sender. Then I saw this in their supported phones...

The Dopod Cavalier... now where have I heard that before? Oh yeah... the original HTC code name for the Dopod C730 is... the CAVALIER that would mean that Maxis knows something about the C730 and isn't telling.

Hmmm.. considering the fact that SiS is outright denying that they're carrying the phone other than the usual product coming soon excuse which they give on unarrived products I'd have to think that Maxis might have some sort of exclusivity deal on the phone and thus everyone else is just denying it's existence here.

So if you're looking for the Dopod C730... you *could* wait a while and see what Maxis does.

Me? I'm still buying it this Saturday... god I hope it's not sold out yet....

That's what WZ has been doing recently, constantly sucking on his thumb. He seems to be drooling due to his teething again. And the amount of drool he leaks is...

Let me put it this way.. he's a very bad sleeper and he moves all over the bed he sleeps in. And we can see exactly where he has been thanks to the trail of drool!