Jason Wong, HKG, YVR, HNL

Today, it was my good friend’s birthday whom I have known for decades.  She was great in every way - kind, friendly and good-hearted.  Almost an year ago, some personal business has changed her life and it was always hard to see good people get sucky treats.  In any case, to lighten up her mood and try to pull her out of her blue, I did something special which I hope that can cheer her up.  I hope I was successful.  I always find, not everybody in the world can deserve everything: wealth, happy marriage, great health, good look.  You may have perfect 10 in every way but as long as you are not in your coffin yet, you never know when the world may turn his back on you.  For those who think they get everything in the sunny coast - they better think of rainy days.

Have you ever encountered “perfect-timing” in life? I did. I remembered, the very last day of my university study, I had one last evening examination to attend. After the examination, I returned home by driving 15 Km. Believe me or not, from the campus all the way to my parents’ house, all traffic lights (there were around 23 lights in total) were green (not even amber) and I reached home with normal driving speed (55 Km) in 10 minutes. That was a very surreal moment - it was like all stars lined up in one line or something.  The least I could say, that night was very special. A perfect finale for my academic life. (Of course, those of you who know me better, should know that I had studied other degree/programs later but anyway, that was second stage of my life)

It has been 10 years since I have had a proper piano teacher. After today’s assessment exercises, I got good ideas how to improve my movement and rhythm more by putting more soul in each strike. It was frustrating in the beginning to get rid of bad habit - like Jazz/Groove Move, Front/Back Twists, etc. But I spent hours in doing exercises, and I have seen some improvement over my constant banging/striking. Anyway, it would be interesting 6 months later to see how my bang/strick works.

Almost one week has passed since my last post.  Other than more works and more meetings coming to my door - there is nothing really unique.  Time flies really fast when you are not looking at the clock.

Since today, I needed to position my neck in certain way, so that I could feel less about the pain, I ended up sitting/lying around my couch and watched TV for the whole evening. I am not a couch potato. Ever since, Sex and the City, Will & Grace, Ally McBeal were no longer on TV, I have stopped watching any show religiously in daily basis. Today, I ended up watching tons of reality TV shows that I found myself very saturated with these REAL PEOPLE, REAL STORIES plots. Not just in Asia but in America, I really find entertainment industry, especially TV media, is hitting a dead end. Nobody seems to care about creativity in making more witty and funny sit-coms. Anything that is new, none of them can last for a season or two. Very, very few can last for more than 4 seasons. The good old time where you sat back and watched some intelligent shows era is well over years ago. How sad…

Woke up ths morning, got this intense neck to chest sharp pain coming from my spine. Went to the office but could not stay for long. Took a leave and lied in bed for hours. The back muscle is still tense but hopefully it will be fine by tomorrow if not 100%. I always get this kind of chronic muscle/joint pain coming from nowhere. This time is probably due to poor sleeping posture.

After working non-stopped for 6-7 weeks, I finally got some personal time to have a hair cut appointment.  My stylist has consulted with me for 5 minutes and I have decided to go with something shorter for hot and humid Hawaii summer season.  Viola, the picture is my after-make over.  Please excuse the background where my cats were trying to make a stand on top of my shopping bags.

(For those with sharp eyes, they can tell the photo is taken by a webcam.  Just want to take it and go and take a full shower after a work-out session.)

Ever since, Burberry has discontinued Canine Fashion last Fall, I was having a bit blue feeling - no more fashion or clothes for my dog.  To emphasize how much do I care about my dog, well, my dog received his first Burberry sweater before I did.  I did buy my clothes to match my dog’s outfits in Canada - quite extreme huh?  Well, I love him and that’s all I can say the least.

Today, I went to Nordstrom.  Guess what, I’ve found something really nice for my dog.  It’s Juicy Doggy Couture!  I got the one which said, “My Dog for President” plus a nice hood attached.  The material is pretty decent too - cotton with small blend of spandex.  My dog loves skin-tight clothes and this material is perfect for him.  The only thing that I hope Juicy Couture can improve is option for colour.  I don’t like black and the only thing that is available is pink.  I got the one with a more taupe in it and it won’t look too bad on my male dog.  Besides, pink is hot for man fashion now.  To complete the story, I have bought a pink T-shirt and pink blouse for my parents.  That concluded my shopping trip this evening.

How many times have you experienced huge disappointment due to high anticipation?  I just got one not long ago.  Before coming to Honolulu, the first thing that I did was to book my concert ticket to see Miss Diana Krall’s night performance way back in December.  On the show night, I put on my up-beat jazzy-blue mood and I thought I would have a fabulous jazz night.  Well, it turned out that there were tons of non-Diana-related local celebration and performances that I did not know they were part of the programs in the beginning.  Don’t get me wrong, I was not saying those biz were bad - but it would be nice to give everyone (which was audience) some advance notice about the show might start late.  After 1+ hours of unrelated business, Miss Krall finally came to the stage and she sat in front of a Steinways and played and sang.  I was expecting her to go through her famous songs, like “The Look of Love”, “Charmed Life”, etc.  Guess what, there was absolutely nothing about those tracks.  The whole night was jammed (yes, really JAM) with piano banging, rushy SUBWAY feel singing.  Nothing worse than, the Honolulu Symphony was in the background and not playing much with 80% of her playlists.  Nobody could imagine how could a talented singer’s concert could turn out to be such a disaster.  I was not the only ones who kept shaking head after the performance.  In fact, there were many well-heeled, mature aged audiences who kept saying, “I wish she could use her talents on something better.”  There was absolutely not a single moment that you could remember what she sang and what she said.  It was BANG, BANG, BANG (piano I mean) and then, “THANK YOU FOR COMING!  GOOD NIGHT!”  After this incident, I needed many weeks, if not months, to reach out and see other performances.  Literally, one bad show can scar you for life!

Remember the old days where every Friday evening, I sat in front of the TV and enjoyed my Sex and the City episodes from Bravo! channel.  There was no doubt about the plots were always witty and the casts were giving out the best performance in everything.  Though not all episodes received enough MUSIC attention.  There were a handful of those that blended the motion pictures and music perfectly.  “A Woman’s Right to Shoes” is definitely one of them.  The last part where Carrie got her revenge and the music by Bona Fide’s Tio Pepe truly highlightened the victory about single people did not need relationship but still stay fabulous.  (Though I was in a relationship during that time but still it was great to see how single people won the battle over pity-marriage-look-down-society)