Every great story that has been ever told has a great ending of its own. That's what makes it a great story. Cinderella lived happily ever after, Voldemort got slayed in the most awesome manner possible and Po became the legendary dragon warrior and defeated Tai Lung in Kung Fu Panda.

And like all great stories ever told, The SDD Vol. 2 Adventures of DoriLukey must also come to an end too. And like all the great stories ever told, the ending must be an awesome one, so this is gonna be an awesome post to read! I hope.

Firstly, I must say that being a part of the Top 10 Finalist bloggers for the Singapore Dance Delight have been a truly awesome (how many times have I used this word?) for someone like me. Unlike other bloggers, I am still relatively quite new in the Singapore blogging arena, only started to get serious when I first came here in 2009, and I can't even hit a decent amount of visitors per month as compared to much more established blogs out there.

In fact, my blog has the ability collect dust whenever I don't touch it but that's another matter.

Despite this, I was still chosen as one of the Top 10 by the, wait for it..., awesome sponsor for this competition F&N Sparkling Drinks and OMY.sg. They have been a great bunch of people to work with. So different from the horror stories that I used to hear about how companies abuse bloggers like making them dance 10 times to be selected as an official blogger.

And furthermore, I also got to meet 9 other equally amazing bloggers through this experience. I had loads of laughs with them and I certainly hope that our paths would cross again.

Okay, enough of the emo-ing and reflections for now, the competition hasn't quite exactly ended yet because they have yet to announce the results so I'm gonna save the emo-ing for later in case I did not win anything. Just kidding.

Anyways, for this competition, I have written it in such a way that it would like some some epic story that you would normally see in TV. Just to keep things interesting and what I've written below is a rough guide and links to all my past posts in a chronological manner. Just to serve as a guide for you all and of course, the handsome and pretty judges :)

Ladies and gentleman, The SDD Vol. 2 Adventures of DoriLukey:

My first entry for the competition: https://lukeyishandsome.com/2011/02/singapore-dance-delight-sdd-vol-02.html

Prologue: https://lukeyishandsome.com/2011/03/spreading-groove-my-first-step-into-big.html

Episode 1, Once Upon A Time: https://lukeyishandsome.com/2011/03/once-upon-time-in-land-far-far-away.html 

Episode 2, The Basic Fives: https://lukeyishandsome.com/2011/03/sdd-vol-2-adventures-of-dorilukey.html 

Episode 3, Of Wedding Dress and O School!: https://lukeyishandsome.com/2011/03/sdd-vol-2-adventures-of-dorilukey_10.html

Episode 4, BOTS: https://lukeyishandsome.com/2011/03/sdd-vol-2-adventures-of-dorilukey_12.html

Episode 5, My Secret Weapon, HTC Wildfire: https://lukeyishandsome.com/2011/03/sdd-vol-2-adventures-of-dorilukey_14.html

Episode 6, The Final Prologue: https://lukeyishandsome.com/2011/03/sdd-vol-2-adventures-of-dorilukey_17.html

Episode 7, The Sentosa Showdown (SDD2 Finals): https://lukeyishandsome.com/2011/03/sdd-vol-2-adventures-of-dorilukey_19.html

and

Episode 8, Final Chapter: What are you viewing now

Well, that takes care the idea of having all the posts in the same place. And of not forgetting my precious baby from this competition, the Finals Summary Video:

Don't look down on it k? It took me a painstakingly 10 hours+ to come up with something like that, shooting and capturing not included. Perhaps I should get an Oscar for that.

But anyways, it has been a fun ride. Opened my eyes to the much bigger blogging scene that is happening around Singapore and thanks to this competition, you'll be definitely seeing me appear in other competitions in the future so if you want my autograph, better say it out now! :p

Sorry, digressed again.

To end off our post today, I shall include a picture to summarize how my entire journey felt. And like they say, the picture will talk:

It's the Trexi that was given to us bloggers by F&N as a Top 10 prize and it's holding a board that talks about friends. And yeap, I think this picture neatly summarizes my feelings. Adios.

(I do hope I'll get that HTC Wildfire though as a consolation prize :p)

*****

The post is proudly brought to you by F&N Sparkling Drinks ( and ). Do check out their page because they have constant updates and contests! And do check out Lukey's (the handsome guy behind this post) blog too at https://lukeyishandsome.com  and if you have Twitter you can also listen to his constant rants in his account. And lastly, Lukey has a small favor to ask you if you enjoyed reading this post. He would greatly appreciate it if you would spend a little time to like his photo at F&N's Facebook page (you might need to like F&N first to be able to vote) so he could fulfill his dream of traveling to a country outside of Southeast Asia. Many thanks and have a nice day!

Today in Twitterverse (Twitter Universe), another famous celebrity has passed away along with others stars such as Jaden Smith, Adam Sandler, Jim Carrey, Justin Bieber and Jeff Goldblum and he is none other than the famous martial arts actor Jackie Chan. Reportedly to have suffered a heart attack while promoting his latest movie Kung Fu Panda 2, the news of his sudden death have been met with shock and disbelief around Twitterverse.

Read the news here: http://pastehtml.com/view/1dud0mh.html

But as for the real world, where you and I are living in now, Jackie Chan is still very much alive and  probably drinking beer with other stars such as Jaden Smith, Adam Sandler, Jim Carrey, Justin Bieber and Jeff Goldblum laughing over their supposed deaths in the alternate Twitterverse.

Because if you have been paying attention, the website above looks strangely suspicious. While it supposed to be on Yahoo News, the website is hosted on http://pastehtml.com instead of yahoo.com

and a click to pastehtml.com reveals this web page:

It's not the first time he's been dead though, figuratively. A few years back, 2005 to be exact, there were also rumors spreading about Jackie being dead: http://forum.ebaumsworld.com/showthread.php?t=117570

People just love killing him, don't they?

I have a few theories behind this hoax though:

1. It's a sick April's Fool joke by those people at bogus news agencies like http://www.theonion.com/ who has a lot of time on their hands coming up with funny fake news. However, faking people's death is definitely not funny in this case and especially if the person is Jackie Chan.

And besides, I could only imagine this being done by some chao ang moh Westerners because Asians would never fake deaths or use death as a joking matter. It's a sensitive topic you know. And besides, why Jackie Chan out of all people? Why not Rebecca Black? Or Steven Lim?

2. Publicity effort for the website Paste HTML. It's a new website and they want people to visit it and what better way to drive traffic to your site than to kill off someone popular? Not an ethical way but still gets the job nonetheless. Still can't understand why they would kill off Jackie Chan though out of so many kill-able celebrities out there.

 

3. Publicity effort for Jackie Chan or his latest movie? Like they say, you'll never be popular until you're dead. Poor Vincent van Gogh.

4. To give something for bloggers like me to talk about since traffic has been quite bad for the past few days. But I highly doubt so since us bloggers are not exactly viewed in a good light all around the online world.

But anyways, Happy April's Fool people. I'm guessing there will be more celebrities "killed" off in the days to come. Possible candidates include Peter Coffin and perhaps Rebecca Black. Most probably due to "suicide". You'll never know.

Yo peeps!

It's been a while since I last wrote about the F&N's Singapore Dance Delight competition so I thought perhaps it would be good to give you all some updates. Besides, the competition is closing in two days time so I thought I would clear up any unfinished posts too regarding the competition.

Which brings us to the main topic for today's post.

Remember about the Taeyang Dance Class competition that I blogged about a while back? The one that was held in conjunction with the Singapore Dance Delight Vol. 02 (SDD2) competition in which 15 lucky winners will have the opportunity to win a six-week dance class to learn Taeyang's awesome wedding dress at O School by posting shoutouts to their favorite finalists teams.

Turns out that two of my close friends were actually lucky enough to be selected as the winners, thanks to F&N. Must have been because some of my luck have rubbed off on them. Just joking.

Oh, and before I forget, let me introduce to you my two lucky friends,

Xian You

and Huang Hua!

Handsome and pretty right? Just like the handsome blogger writing this post.

Anyway, they have been telling me since the first time they went for the lesson about how fun the entire class was and have been asking me why I did not join the contest in the first place even though I have an entire blog post dedicated to it.

Being the skeptical guy I was, I decided to tag along with them for one day and see for myself whether the dance class was as fun as they said it would be.

So off we go to O School!

Okay, I'm pretty lazy to type already after boarding the bus so for the next few minutes I'll just let the pictures do the talking while I go grab something to eat. Bwahahaha.

O School, SCAPE. One of the best dance schools around in Singapore

Singapore's version of The Thinker statue. (Stoning while waiting for the class to start)

 That's me on the right by the way, trying to see if there's a Wifi signal I can coop to tweet about how happy I am to be able to see the Wedding Dress choreo. Turns out there's none :(

The awesomely big studio where the practice takes place. Even bigger than my whole house combined.

I call this masterpiece of art The Shoes On The Dance Floor. Actually the photo was taken by Huang Hua. But since I'm the photographer for the day, all the photos that were taken on the day will be mine! *Evil Laughter*

"Isn't Luke just handsome for helping us take this picture?". Okay she didn't say that. They were to busy to notice me taking photos anyway.

Our choreographer for the day, Zaihar! He's quite famous in the Singapore dance scene according to all my dance friends. Lucky Xian You and Huang Hua.

Sadly, I did not take any photos during the dance practice session because it wouldn't be good to have a handsome photographer walking around with a camera when you're practicing your steps. You would be too distracted with the handsome photographer, I mean the camera to pay attention to what the instructor is teaching in front. And besides, there were also members of the public other than the 15 winners who were enrolled in the class so I decided to roam around and take some photos while waiting for the class to end.

I took some nice pictures too like this:

The O School Emblem

I don't know about you guys but the design vaguely reminds me of another similar emblem that looks something like this:

Similar right? I bet the person who designed O School's emblem is a big fan of Japanese anime because the bottom emblem was from one of my all time favorite anime, Hitman Reborn!

Or maybe I'm just too addicted to animes that I can seem to draw links to them from anywhere. *Slaps Myself* No more anime fever!

Anyways, before I knew it, the one hour has quickly passed by as I was admiring that cool emblem of O School's. And as the "blogger" covering the event, of course I have some special rights. Like ordering the 15 winners to pose for a picture for my blog.


I know, that's a blatant abuse of power right. Which explains why there were only 10 of the winners who were willing to pose for the photo for me.


The other five was standing behind me with a big rock over my head.

Just kidding.

And now that the dance class has finished, it would be good to revise the steps before you forget right? And what better place to do it than a DDR machine located just one floor below O School?

Practicing Wedding Dress On A DDR Machine




Boy, all those dancing sure got us really hungry and tired, I must say. Lunch time!


Typical social media addict plus blogger. Eat also must have iPad next to him. Tsk tsk tsk

And thus with a full stomach today's post will end. Of course, not forgetting to thank the wonderful sponsors F&N sparkling drinks for giving me and my friends this awesome chance to experience new awesome things (free too!) together with O School.

F&N Rocks!


Spread the cheer yo!

And to end off today's post, we're gonna have the two winners and the main characters for today to do a jumping shot. Lets JUMP


JUMP...


and EPIC JUMP!


Goodnight!

And don't jump off your beds while sleeping!

*****

After writing a blog post yesterday about Why All Guys Want A Girlfriend, I thought it would only be fair to write about the opposite for today. Gender equality right?

And besides, I'm a guy. Which guy would want to bash up the rest of his fellow brothers without also bashing up the members of the opposite sex?

So ladies and gentlemen, presenting to you, the top reasons of why women would want a male companion called boyfriend in life, according to Lukey:

1. Cash

Running low on cash? Can't afford to buy that Prada bag that is on sale?

Fear not! With a boyfriend around, you will never have to worry about spending about spending those precious cash of yours anymore. A boyfriend would pay for your food, your clothes and anything you would like to have without complaining.

What better way to save money than to find yourself a boyfriend right?

2. Driver

Hate to squeeze on public transport but can't afford to pay for taxi rides every time you want to go shopping? Boyfriend is the answer.

He would drive you or fetch you to/from anywhere you want without complaining in hopes making out with you in the car.

3. Bug catcher

Are you afraid of bugs or anything with more than 4 legs? And you would rather jump off a building than to touch them with your hands? A boyfriend can help you solve all your bug problems even though he might be afraid of the bugs himself because he would want to look tough and manly in front of you.

4. Bitching post

Have loads to complain about life and those bitchy friends of yours but no idea where to dispose your feelings? A boyfriend is the ideal place to bitch all you want about anything in life without worrying that he would disagree with you and spread your secrets out because it is his job as a boyfriend to listen to all your woes without complaining and to support you all the way.

Besides, he might forget about everything you told him the next day because he was too busy thinking about his football so there's no risk of having your secrets exposed.

5. Shopping bag carrier

All girls love shopping right? And there's just so much to buy sometimes that two hands is just not enough to carry everything you would like to buy.

And that's where the boyfriend comes in. After performing Task 1 and Task 2, the next logical step would be to ask him to carry all the cheap deals that you managed to grab during the shopping trip. Besides, it's undeniable that males are biologically stronger so it's only natural for them to do all the heavy stuff around. Like carrying the 10 pairs of shoes you just bought

6. Asset

Girls also love to show off most of the time. And boyfriends are the epitome of showing off.

Girl 1: My boyfriend is so good that his bought me this diamond ring for our one month anniversary!

Girl 2: That's nothing. My boyfriend is way better because he bought a condo just for my puppy Fifi!

Girl 3:Who needs a boyfriend? I have myself! (But deep down inside I'm so freakingly jealous! I want my boyfriend to build me a house on the moon next time. Just you all wait.)

7. Love

But of course, like us guys, girls are also human too and being able to love and to be loved back is one of the greatest pleasures in life. And what's life if you don't have someone to share the ups and downs with right?

And having someone to catch a bug for you is so sexy.

So girls, anyone of you looking for a boyfriend?

*****

Disclaimer: This post is intended as a joke and is no way supported by any theories, studies or scientific evaluation. And let me clarify that this post does not in anyway represents how most of the girls think. But if you still want to take offense, go ahead and be my guest.

As a Psychology major, I find myself in a constant search for answers of human behaviors I see around me. One of it would be the constant need for guys to have a girlfriend. Not all of us, but most. Myself included.

Throw any single guy to mix with any decent enough single girl and the next thing you'll know would be the single guy weighing the options of whether he should chase her or not. That's the single most popular reason of why guys would want to know a girl in the first place. There's no such thing as a guy really wanting to be your friend when he ask you whether he can be your friend or not.

When a guy asks you whether he can be friends with you, deep down in his heart he's thinking about making you his girlfriend the moment you say yes.

Trust me. I'm a guy. I know.

But why actually? Why are us guys so desperate to look for a girlfriend? Why can't we just live happily ever after alone?

There's a few theories that I can think of. It's not scientifically supported but well, who said blog posts needed to be scientific? Among the few reasons why all guys want a girlfriend includes:

1. To Satisfy Their Need For Sex

Noticed how every guy wants to screw their girlfriend after they get attached? The sooner the better too. And if the girlfriend refuses to give them sex, they would go on and on about how the girlfriend doesn't love them and stuff.

To them, a girlfriend is never a girlfriend until both of them have made "passionate" love together. We have Hollywood to thank for this.

2. Life would suck without one

Disney said that to live happily ever after, we need to find a "princess" and get married. So it wouldn't be surprising for us to think that life wouldn't end happily without a girlfriend by our side when we grow up since we have this message hammered into us from young.

3. Because the guy next to me has one

We guys are jealous creatures. We like to compare and compete to be the best. If you have an iPhone, I would want an iPhone too. If you're driving a Ferrari, I would buy one tomorrow immediately. And if you have a girlfriend, of course I would also want one.

4. Companionship?

Yeah we get lonely sometimes. We need people to talk to and agree with our viewpoints sometimes too. And we definitely can't afford to grow old alone right?

5. Free maid

Girlfriends come with skills that we guys are genetically incapable to have. Skills like washing our clothes, cooking good food and taking good care of ourselves. Only a girlfriend can do that with perfection. We can't.

6. Love?

And of course, maybe it's because we love you and can't live without you. Reason being that without you, we would be missing on the 5 big enjoyments of life listed above.

So would you be my girlfriend?

******

Disclaimer: This post is intended as a joke and is no way supported by any theories, studies or scientific evaluation. And let me clarify that this post does not in anyway represents how most of us guys think. But if you still want to take offense, go ahead and be my guest.

Read about Why Girls Want Boyfriends HERE

A day after netizens responded in fury following a call by a mysterious girl named Samantha who said that Singaporeans heartlanders are "uncultured" and "low-class", it was revealed today in Twitter that the call might have been a April's Fool day prank that was scripted.

So it turns out that the call was a fake.

And so what they expect us to do now? Go "Hahaha" and say that it was a funny and good one?

I'm definitely not going to do so. Cause it ain't. In fact, I find the prank too cheap and tasteless to be worth laughing at. Playing on stereotypes to get people all hyped up and then saying it was nothing but a prank?

How would you feel if I poured acid on you and shouted April's Fool? I'm pretty sure the last thing that you would think of is to laugh right?

As far as I know, a lot of feelings were hurt yesterday. From what that has been going on in forums, many were wondering how could a fellow Singaporean step on her fellow countrymen. Shock, disbelief and anger were the few emotions that was echoed all around the internet.

People were pissed off alright.

And I guess it must have scared the hell out of you for you to quickly come out and say, "Oh, it's alright, it's alright. Nothing's wrong. It's just a joke only. Hahaha! Funny right? Right?".

Besides, it's not even close enough to April (I wrote this on 25th March) to call it as an April Fool's prank. I'm guessing the April's Fool prank thing is just an attempt to save a publicity stunt that went wrong.

The details are still vague, however. Who were the "funny" people behind the incident? Who sponsored it? What was their purpose? It's just a few tweets in Twitter now that claims that this incident was a fake.

For all I know, given the situation now, the call might or not might be fake. Either way, the culprit behind this must be brought to light for coming up with a sick joke like this.

Totally inappropriate and totally lame.

Just when I was at lost at what I should blog tonight, out came little Miss Samantha from the blue. Or should I say, from Holland Village.


The story goes that on one beautiful Wednesday morning, which was today the 24th of March 2011, a girl who identified herself as Samantha gave the radio a call and ranted about how "low-class" Singaporean heartlanders should stay away from Holland V because people from the heartlands are definitely "not cultured".
(You can listen to her rants here and here. Read more about the story )

I'm no Singaporean (am still pretty much a Malaysian actually :p) and I'm still trying to grasp the concept of what the heartlands actually mean (I know it is an integral part of Singapore's identity and it refers to housing neighbourhoods created by HDB) so you could say that I'm pretty much the last suitable person to stand up to her but looking at how ignorant she can get, it really pisses me off. And besides, I have many Singaporean friends who come from the heartlands and the last thing that I would associate them with is the word "UNCULTURED".

From what I could gather from the short 6 minutes she was on air, Miss Samantha based her arguments of how heartlanders are "low-class" and "uncultured" on the way they dress (singlets, weird coloured hair, slippers), the way they talk (loudly), the way they shop (buy cheap stuff at Bugis), the way they don't earn enough to eat laksa at Holland Village, how they love to shove and stuff like that, you know, the stuff that you would say if you are major stereotyping people. And she goes on as far to say that heartlanders should be kept in heartlands and not visit Holland Village because they are "uncultured".

Is it me, or do I smell a dumb blonde around?

Firstly, making assumptions of people's level culture based on where they stay is just stupid. It's like saying all Singaporeans are kiasu just because they come from Singapore or that all Malaysians are Malays just because they come from Malaysia. It's people like her who caused millions of Jews to die during the holocaust and millions of black Africans to suffer during the apartheid in South Africa.

You can't just lump everyone into a category and assume they act the same way just because a few of them do. Each and everyone of us is different, you know. How would you feel if I say that everyone in Holland Village are drunkards just because I saw a few drunk people in Holland Village when I visited there? Pretty unfair right?

And saying that people who does not dress as nicely as you have no culture?

Only people like Ris Low or Paris Hilton would say something like that. You know, those bimbos that when you hit them on the head, it could produce an echo that is even louder than what you can get at the Grand Canyon?

Culture is not something that you can measure physically by seeing how people dress. Of course, I don't deny that how you present yourself do matters, but I for one believe that when it comes to being cultured, it is what is inside that matters more.

Like what I experienced once on the MRT, for example. I was standing nearby to two women who were sitting on the reserved seats and it was one of the peak hours where all seats are occupied. One of the women was dressed  rather nicely, you know, with all those jewelry and stuff, those rich aunties, you might say, while the other was one who looked pretty much like a foreign maid.

When the train stopped at the next station, an elderly entered carrying loads of grocery on her hands. And guess who gave up her seat to the elderly? Rather than the nicely dressed lady that was supposed to be "cultured", it was the foreign maid that stood up and offered her seat with a smile. And the rich auntie just sat there like nothing happened

I guess it's "culture" to feign ignorance at all times.

Besides, we don't call the Japanese cultured people because they always dress in tuxedos or night gowns. We call them cultured because of their mannerism and personalities. We call them cultured because they are nice. Which is Miss Samantha clearly lacked. Being nice. So she's not cultured as she said, period.

And who cares if we dress in singlets and slippers anyway? Like my dad used to say, as long as I have cash in my wallet and I am able to pay for what I eat, who cares? I am sure that you prefer a customer in singlet who spends a lot at your shop rather than one in tuxedo who comes in your shop, take a look and don't spend even a cent right?

But of course, I personally would not be able to explain what prompted Miss Samantha to behave in such a way. Stereotypes, after all, needs to be taught and cultivated from young. Perhaps it's her family that brought her up to think in such a way. Or perhaps she's raised in such a closed environment that she rarely mixes with people outside from her comfort zone.

Which is quite sad actually because she would be so caught up with this delusional self righteous thinking of hers to actually experience the full color of life as it is. I'm predicting that she would be so afraid to mix with the so called heartlanders and the only friends she would have are those who think in a same way as her. Bigots, if you may.

And what's even sadder is that in days to come, if her identity is revealed, she would be harassed and tormented for the rest of her days, given that heartlanders are as "uncultured" as she said.

What I do know is that from my point of view, she's the one that is being uncultured for having such a closed minded twisted stereotypical self righteous view on her fellow countrymen. As far as I'm concerned, being cultured means being open to diversity and the willingness to accept others as they are and not subjecting them to your point of view.

And if she already has such an extreme view purely based on where people stay, god knows what other beliefs she might have regarding people of different race and gender.

So who are you calling uncultured yo, Miss Samantha?

P/s: The authors at lukeyishandsome.com does not condone any acts of violence or insults back at Miss Samantha. We are cultured people after all so we would not resort to such low tactics. However, if you do fee that you want to get back at her, there's this event going on at Facebook where they are trying to get a 1000 people to go down to Holland V in their singlets and shorts to show Miss Samantha who's boss. Do check out their FB page . Til then, tootles 

P/p/s: What are your personal thoughts about the incident? Feel free to drop a comment down below! 

EDIT: False Alarm! It's a prank.https://lukeyishandsome.com/2011/03/samanthas-holland-v-cultured-call-was.html


EDIT 2: Apparently the recordings are now all taken down from the website. I smell something fishy. Some conspiracy going on?

The internet is littered with racist people. You, idiots who think that their skin color and culture is superior to the rest of the world? And that people who are different than them should be relegated to inferior roles like being a janitor or maid?

Just recently, somewhere during early March, an American girl by the name Alexandra Wallace (she happens to be a bikini model, by the way) who is studying in UCLA posted a video of her ranting about how Asians are impolite, how they should emulate the Americans and how their culture literally sucks on Youtube. You can view her rant here:

And if you're an Asian, I bet you will at least disagree with some points that she raised and probably will feel a little bit pissed off by her racist comments.

I do.

And I was about to throw my homework aside and write a 5000 word blog post about why Americans suck too when I found out that there are already loads of people that have replied to her comments in various ways.

There's the downright badass way by Peter Chao that includes loads of cursing and swearing:

And there's the intellectually funny plus sarcasm laden response that makes the girl looks stupid and we Asians look intelligent, by this guy who is from UCLA

And to top it all off, we also have the forgiving Asian that even made her a love song as a response!

Aren't we Asians just creative? And definitely united, I must say.

And those three video responses are not the only ones that were posted into Youtube in response to her racist rant video. A quick search with the keywords "UCLA racist Asian rant" returned more than 10 pages of related videos that either makes fun of her or rebukes her in some sort of way. In just less than one month.

Apparently the backlash against her video was that bad until she had to eventually leave UCLA due to the amount of harassment that she faced from fellow students despite already issuing two apologies regarding her video.
 

Here's a online video news report about how she's doing right now:

Looks like Alexandra Wallace learned the hard way that the internet is not such an unforgiving place after all and anything that you post up to the internet stays there permanently, no matter how hard you would try to erase it.

Honestly, I pity her. This incident is so gonna haunt her for the rest of her life no matter where she goes. And I sure hope she won't end up anywhere near an Asian, that's for sure.

So I guess the lesson would be no matter what you want to post unto the internet, think twice before doing so. Because you'll never know what type of effect your action may have.

It has been roughly more than a month since Rebecca's Black music video Friday has been uploaded. It has roughly 34 million hits now (as of 23rd March 2011), one of Youtube's most watched videos and her name has been trending over a week now in Twitter, which is an amazing feat because most stars can't even last 2 days trending in Twitter. You can say that basically most people around world who has an internet connection would be talking about her now. But at what price?

If you have yet to know, here's a little back story so you could understand what's all the big fuss surrounding Rebecca Black is all about.  

Like many of us, Rebecca is a 13 year old girl who loves to sing and aspire to be a famous singer one day. So she does the same thing that most of us would be doing, which is to post a music video of her singing into Youtube and hopes it goes viral. The only difference?

She enlisted a professional media company that does stuff like this called The Ark Music Company and paid them 2000 dollars to have her video made. The end result? A polished looking MV, like those you'd find on big stars' albums with studio sound recording and state of the art video editing but none of the talent. The MV was heavily criticized for its heavily auto-tuned singing and mediocre lyrics. In fact, most of the comments about her were outright negative both in Twitter and Youtube. Some even went as far as to ask her to "cut" herself "and die".

If you need any proof that human is very capable of hate, just look at Rebecca Black.

But why hate her actually? If you come think of it, she hasn't done anything bad except to post her MV unto Youtube, which is what most of us do nowadays. I mean she hasn't say anything controversial like how the earthquake that happened to Japan was karma or done anything disgusting like the infamous Two Girls One Cup video (only guys would understand this).

All she had done is to just approach a music company and pay them to help her make a music video. When you come to think of it, it's not any different from paying a photo studio to have a nice photo of you taken.

I guess it's just part of us human nature to hate and to demean people. And maybe we're just jealous of the fact that with the limited talent she has, she can still be famous while all we can do is to sit behind the computer and drop a negative comment about her. And we don't seem to realize that in the process of demeaning her by posting negative feedback about her in our Facebook and Twitter, we are just helping to promote her more.

Like how one internet guru once said, there's just no more negative publicity anymore on the internet. As long as your video/blog/song/picture is being shared, the types of comments you're receiving does not matter as long as people is talking about you in the internet. That's how the internet works nowadays, after all.

And if I may say, the real winner here is not Rebecca Black, her fame will eventually die down when everyone grows bored of talking about her anyway, but it's Ark Music Factory, the company that's behind her video. By employing various methods like heavily auto-tuning the song, mediocre lyrics and controversial scenes like 13 year old kids driving cars, they have essentially written the formula of success in the video in ensuring that the video goes viral, which it did judging from the 30 million views.

And when the video does go viral, people will start approaching them to have their own music video made, just like how Rebecca Black did. It's free publicity after all. When you view Friday, you can't possibly miss the big Ark Music Factory wording at the beginning of the video. And for 2000 dollars per MV (I'm guessing the fee would be increased soon), they would be making loads of money soon.

So by the end of the day, capitalism - 1, normal people like us - 0.

My lecturer for emotional psychology did an very interesting thing today. Not that he never does anything interesting, but for today's lecture, he told us that we were a lucky bunch to be born in such a good country and in such a good time as compared to the rest of the humans in the entire history.

Among the reasons that why we are so lucky, according to Sage Eddie Tong (that's what he calls himself whenever he talks philosophically) is because we weren't born in darker times of history or place like:

- in Mexico during the ancient times, where we would be captured by the Aztecs and have our heart dug out as a sacrifice to the Aztec gods

- during the dark ages in Europe, where we would be falsely accused of practicing witchcraft and be burned alive

- in the 1400s in England where our home is constantly threatened by the barbarians and we have to survive on eating whatever we can find

- during the time of the Roman civilization where we would be captured by the Romans and forced to be a gladiator, fighting against the animals for the entertainment of others until the day we die, which normally is around the age of 30 or so

- in the 1800s in Africa, where we would be captured by colonialists and sold as a slave to America, forever separated from our families and homeland

- during the World War 2 where we would be forcibly enlisted as one of the Allied marines and have our head shot with a machine gun when we are landing on the Normandy beaches

- in the 1970s in India where we would be kidnapped as a child, have our limbs amputated and forced to beg the streets for a living

- in the 1980s in North Korea where we would be sent to a concentration camp where the only offense we did was to listen to a South Korean pop song

There's a lot more that he gave during the lecture, but what's what I can roughly remember along with some addition of my own. So, are you feeling pretty lucky now? And do you have any others to add? Do drop a comment below :)

1. You have piled up readings that you have not touched all the way from Week One until now. Now is already Week 10

2. Your bank account is left with 50 dollars

3. The client is not happy with the freelance work that you did for them in attempt to earn some money to counter the 50 dollars problem

4. The 172 dollars that you checked out from your blog earnings is nowhere to be seen

5. The last time you had a full 8 hours sleep was 3 months ago

6. You have no idea what your priorities in life are anymore

7. You spend more time on Twitter, Facebook and DOTA than studies and commitments

8. You know that something is wrong but you're too lazy to care and even if you do care, you're too lazy to do anything about it

9. Procrastination is currently your number one best friend in life

10. Your fan is so thick with dust that every time you turn on the fan, it looks like it's snowing. Except that the snow happens to be black

11. Hygiene is probably the last thing you have in your mind right now. And so is studies

12. You can spend an entire day pressing F5 on your internet browser but can't even last a minute reading your textbook

13. Your phone refuses to display the amount of battery it has left accurately

14. The only free day that you will have is 2 years down the road, when you graduate

15. The person that you like doesn't like you and the person that you don't like likes you

******

*In Simple Plan's music tone*

Welcome to my life!

******

Armed with only a phone camera that refuses to take good photo and a free ticket, me and four friends bravely embarked on a journey to "fly" together on the Singapore Flyer. Or at least that's what the signboards are trying to tell us.

I reality, we did not really FLY with the Singapore Flyer. More like sat through it and talking cock all the way. And took some really bad photographs like this with my camera phone:

Honestly, there's not much to do in the gondola actually besides taking photos to show off that you have been to the flyer before. They don't even allow us to eat inside unless we pay loads of extra cash.

And with the ride lasting around 30 minutes, they should have so warned me about emptying my bladder first before taking the ride. Two full glasses of water in a toilet-less gondola for 30 minutes isn't exactly the best way to enjoy Singapore's night scenery.

But still, the view was nice. It would have been a lot better if I had went with my girlfriend though. Or if I happen to have a girlfriend.

After days of tiring journey, I have finally arrived at the place where the Singapore Dance Delight Vol. 2 Finals is about to take place, Sentosa Island! The place with four beaches, a museum, some roller coasters, an underwater world, a casino and loads of pretty girls in hot swimsuits.

As this happens to be one of the final laps in my SDD2 blogging journey and also happens to be my first time attending such a big event, I was nervous all the way down. So nervous in fact, that I think the butterflies in my stomach turned into bees or something.

But it wasn't me alone who was excited about the event though. The Merlion was too.

I must admit that that was the time I have ever seen the Sentosa Merlion greet me in such a way.

And with the Merlion's blessing with me, I'm off again on my journey to the place where the SDD2 finals would be held, Sentosa Wavehouse! The only place in Singapore that you can find waves aside from my bathtub when I release ahem, air.

It was not only me who was on this quest though. If you have been following the past episodes (sound like some drama series now) you would remember that there were 10 other handsome and pretty bloggers who joined this competition together with me. And I happened to bump into them while I was walking towards Sentosa Wavehouse.

Like they said, a little company is better than none right? So we all decided to head over to place together.

I must say that walking with a group of bloggers is a completely new experience for me though. I've never been to a bloggers gathering before so I have really little idea on how to act as one. Something really interesting that I noticed about being a blogger is the passion for taking photos.

In fact, everyone in the picture who happens to be holding a camera is a blogger itself. Maybe we should start calling ourselves photobloggers rather than just bloggers alone. Sound so much more sophisticated. I'll be called the handsomephotoblogger by the way, since I have the word handsome in my blog.

Okay, enough of digressing, let us now move on to the real topic of the day, 

Singapore Dance Delight Vol 2!!!!!!!!

(the exclamation marks is to give the Sheikh Haikel effect. He's the emcee of the night by the way, and he's dang awesome! Will introduce you to him later)

Entry this way please!

And to make this year's SDD uniquely different, the organizers have decided to let the audience enjoy the seaside plus romantic beach scenery, lazing on the beach chair while watching the show...

... while the contestants are required do dance on the waves to prove that they are the best dancers out there.

Just joking.

This isn't some dance movie like Step Up 3 for all I know. There's water involved with the stage, but no to such extent. In fact, the stage for the night looks pretty much like this:

 You might want to watch your steps though while you're dancing. Or you'll end up dancing together with the fishes. A top view from the stage would be something like this:

I told you that there will be water involved with the stage right?

And with the introduction of the stage complete, let us move on to the main event of the day. Dancing! And who better to kick of the event than the legendary Sheikh Haikel himself? THE man who rocks the stage without fear and the man who reminds me of many exclamation marks. F&N couldn't have chosen a better emcee than him. When he talks, people listen. And laugh too :)

 Oh yeah, not forgetting that the teams need to walk the red carpet first and have their photo taken for the media! Like I said, this event is no small simple school level type of event. Alright everyone, smile for the cameras please!

That's The Basic Fives and BOTS by the way, the two teams that I was assigned to cover for the entire duration of SDD2. Aren't they cute? And yes, I'm being biased here. But I believe that you wouldn't have the time to go through all 20 teams' photos right?

Seeing all the teams dressed up so nicely sure got me excited about their item. Your costume do play a role in bringing out your dance and making it look nice. You can't imagine a team dancing in singlets and shorts right, at least for the hip hop genre.

Before we begin there's still two things that must be done in order for the show to run smoothly.

Firstly, the audience must get warmed up first. So they can be hyper, enthusiastic and scream their lungs out when watching the dance. The last thing that you would want is to have a dead audience who just know how to sit quietly and look bored when you have awesome teams performing on stage.

So in order to get everyone hyped up, the audience was asked to perform on the stage too!

That's Sheikh Haikel going through some basic rules with the chosen ones. And telling them that there's Far East Movement tickets up for grabs! And whaddya know, most of the people there can dance really well too! Maybe there's a big motivation coming from the Far East Movement tickets.

Even the small kid dances better than me. Ugh.

It was not only the audience that was require to perform on stage though. Even the judges have too. It was to introduce them to the rest of the people there and to let us see how good the judges actually are.

I just only want to say that if the judges joined the competition, they would have completely swept the prizes. Which is why they are judges I guess.

That's Tatsuo, one of the four finals judges showing off his moves. We have Machine, Dominique and Ryan as the rest of the judges too! It's a shame I did not get all of their pictures together because I was too busy recording their dance item on video. You can check out the video that I did later to see their awesome dance!

The stage is set, the audience is hyped up, the judges have been introduced and now let the fun begin!

For the first team, all the way from the Philipines, we have Team Elite!

And coming up second, we have the Fantastic Forze Crew!

I must say that the one thing that captured my attention the most was the their face painting. Totally tribal and suits their dance so much.

And after Fantastic Forze Crew, we have our bums burning thanks to the Burning Bums couple team!


When you see them dance, you can so totally feel the chemistry between them. From what I see, they are not dancing because of the competition, they are dancing because they enjoy dancing with each other. And watching them dance just makes you wanna go "awww....".

Which is why they won the second prize for the night. A good mixture of whacking and pooping along with the heartwarming and romantic chemistry, they deserve the prize.


And that was the move that sealed their placing. I heard that they are engaged too! How sweet!

And performing fourth we have Major Jam! If you see them dancing confirm traffic jam!




Next up, we have Go Go Funky Rangers! And they're one of the foreign teams all the way from Indonesia.



And yeap, they are funky alright with all those insane locking moves. It's such a shame that they did not dressed up as power rangers. But I enjoyed their style a lot. Funky and funny yo!

And after the rangers, we have BOTS!



Comprising of seven guy members, they have a pretty tight choreography for the finals and I know that it's not easy to get seven members dancing completely in sync with each other. In dance, the more people your group have, the harder it is to achieve total synchrony among the group.

But still, BOTS managed to pull that off. Although they have a really fast song with a lot of hits, freezes and rapid movements here and there, the whole group still manages to look as one. If I'm in their group, you can bet I will be standing out like a sore thumb because of all my missed moves.

Next up, we have the Harlequinn.



If there was one group that managed to scare me during SDD2, it was Harlequinn .

You can't blame me though. The scary face paint along with their expressions and their dance moves were designed to do just that purposes.

And after being scared like crazy, it's good to cheer up a bit right? And what better group to do that other than an all girls group called Rough Addicts! *Whistles*




And like BOTS, they have 7 members too! Hmm...

Moving on, we have Sickin Freaks next.




And after Sickin Freak we have The Basic Fives!

Yeap, the group that I was assigned to cover as part of my SDD2 blogging journey. And I must say that they are TOTALLY awesome. It's not surprising that one of my hall's dance choreographer, Nicole Tay, loves them so much.




If I am to say anything, I would say that it's such a shame that they did not win anything from the competition. I was seriously expecting them to win at least something.

Their dance choreography, their synchrony and their expression were all there. Even many of the audience were wowed by their performance. It was entertaining and tight at the same time.

Well perhaps the judges were looking for something else but for me, I am officially a fan of them now!

After the Basic Fives, we have The Zoo Thailand!



Explosive, intense and lots of back skipping. That was The Zoo Thailand.

From the start of their dance and all the way to the end, they managed to keep the audience going with their barrage of insane moves. And the choreography of the dance was something new that you don't always get to see in the Singaporean dance scene. It's original, if you could say that.

And perhaps that's why the third placing belongs to them.

Size Zero was up next.



Followed by F4C Stars.



And after them you have Singapore's pioneer in the House style type of dancing, Househead!



And the team that came later swept the crowd away. You can't blame them though, they were the champions last year after all and yes they're none other than Joyce and the Boys.

That's Joyce


And these are her boys



My only comment?

Spoil market.

Popping, locking, whacking and a little bit of lyrical, those were among the different dance styles that were incorporated into their dance. From the moment they started their dance all the way until the end, there wasn't a moment the audience weren't shouting.

And it wasn't surprising that they won again this year given their ability to hold the crowd, entertain and combine so many styles into one awesome performance. And I guess one could say that you know that they are going to win already the moment they finished their item. Because their level is just overkill.

And after watching the winning performance from Joyce and the Boys, we have Free Frag up next. They would give you a free grenade if you want.



And after Free Frag, the team that won the special prize, Hit The Speed Limit was next.



Dressed up as police officers with shades, they are a group that managed to put a lot of funny dance moves together with their music. And looking at the photos, you could say that they were dressed to make you laugh. And that's the point of their dance moves too. Wacky, funny and entertaining.

And original too, looking at the way of how they managed to make popping comical. I especially loved the alien part where they used their moves to simulate some alien UFO rising up.

They deserved the special prize.

And for the last three groups, we have I.M



And the Flair Brothers



And lastly, Sonic Vibe.



*****

In short, the finals for Singapore Dance Delight Vol. 2 was totally mindblowing and awesome. The top 20 teams each brought their strengths and uniqueness to the stage and as part of the audience, I must say that all the 20 teams had me entertained for the entire event.

And not forgetting F&N too, for providing unlimited supply of sparkling juices for us thirsty audience.


*****

Singapore Dance Delight Vol.2, like how Sheikh Haikel would say, was DOPE! Totally enjoyed the blogging journey thanks to F&N. And many thanks to the bloggers that made this event a success too!


It was FUN!

And I guess with this ends our sseven episode blog journey of SDD2 then. I might be blogging some more about SDD2 and F&N fun in general but not under this title anymore. And if I'm lucky, I might win the highly sought after Osaka tickets. Wish me luck!

This is Lukey signing off.

Check out the rest of the photos that I took for the event at and

*****