Grubbs n Critters

May 9, 2012

Dream Theater

Ahhh….where do I start?

I knew about Dream Theater when I was 17 years old, and while I liked their music, I was not as crazy about it as I was with the likes of Green Day, Pearl Jam and Tool to name a few. (Different league, I know!)

I knew a few of their songs (i.e Dream Theater’s) , but perhaps, at such a young age, I could not have understood or even appreciated the hype of their musical talents.

For a long time, Dream Theater laid buried under my subconscious. It was a case of sheer nonchalance – I know them , I like some of the stuff they played. I did not dwell on it, and it was not something I’d listen to every day or go ga-ga with. And that was that.

Fast forward almost 15 years later, I was reminded of them again when Silver Bullet discovered it a while back and started playing Dream Theater’s music in his car. Bits and pieces of some of the songs I heard sent me back to my growing up years. Somehow, there were were fragments of the songs which took me back in time, and to the friends who introduced me to Dream Theater; and I couldn’t, for the life of me, pin-point the band that was playing on his car stereo.They sounded so good to my ears, but I had a hard time deciphering in my head some of the somewhat familiar melodies I was hearing ( I can’t believe I cannot identify the band!) and finally asked Silver Bullet what he has been playing in his car.

“Dream Theater!”, he said. “And, I love them! Their music is amazing”

Like a deer with a headlight, I went, “Really? That’s Dream Theater? Seriously? Gosh! When did you start listening to this? I remember liking them from when I was a teenager; only I did not remember them being this awesome! They actually performed in Thailand a few years ago”

Fast forward to sometime later, we found out that Dream Theater was going to come to Bangkok for the 3rd time, and like excited teenagers, we both bought tickets and went to the concert last night.

It was a different concert. A league of its own. The crowd mainly consisted of those within our age group or older; which makes it seemed all appropriate.

A review I read described them as having achieved a “startlingly sublime synthesis of soaring and unmistakable melody, progressive instrumentation and aggressive heaviness unrivaled within hard rock music”.

I cannot have described it better.

The atmosphere was mellow and intimate (we were sitting around and not jumping like monkeys!), yet energized by the aggressive and explosive energy of awesome instrumental calibration. Their musical talent shone through on the instruments they played.

They have the craziest drum set I have ever seen and the drummer, Mike Mangini blew me away! I’m even more impressed by the fact that Mike Mangini, apart from being a musical genius in his own right (he set five world record in World’s Fastest Drummer), he also has quite an impressive resume. Not only did he pursue a Computer Science Major and worked on programming software for Patriot Missile program, studied the links between human brain and body, as well as lectured at the Berkley College of Music and wrote two books.

The bassist, John Myung, plays a 6-string bass and was once voted as the greatest bassist of all time. Their guitarist , John Petrucci, apparently played a 7-sting guitar yesterday (Silver Bullet dropped from the sidelines and squeezed to the front to see up-close the number of strings he had on his guitar just to confirm suspicion), and the keyboardist, Jordan Rudess has got a very cool synthesizer which makes him look like keyboard wizard.

And when they play, man! Considering that they changed their beat and rhythm almost constantly, they were still so perfectly synchronised with their music despite what seemed to be like a challenging feat!

It was, all in all a brilliant concert! It went above my expectation and it definitely was an enjoyable concert. I can’t quite compare it side by side to other concerts that I have been, for like I said this one, was really a league of its own.

Here are some not-so-sharp snapshot of the concert. You’d have to squint if you want to make out that crazy-looking drum set in the centre…

21 months update

Category: Spud: Stories and Updates

Our little cheeky monkey is keeping us on our toes. Whilst she is more than capable to play by herself and be left alone for a short while as we watch her from the corner of the room, there are moments when a heart attack (for the parents) is imminent.

Like when she decides that it is fun to do somersaults and back flips with her head positioned right at the edge of the couch or the recliner chair.

Like when she thinks that it is perfectly OK to reach for a rather heavy-set glass jar on our dining table and then tries to hold on to it by hanging on to the lid with just two of her tiny little fingers.

Like when she thinks that it is perfectly reasonable to turn on the fan and tries to poke her tiny little fingers into the gaps on the cover of the fan.

Like when she finds that it gives her such adrenalin rush to RUN like a flash from one corner of any couches to the other corner, almost slipped and may come crashing down on the glass table because she lost her footing while attempting that dash.

Like when she KNOWS that she was not supposed to be doing something but attempted to do it anyway , perhaps just to see how you react. This happened at school when I picked her up the other day. I was still trying to sort out her bag 2 meters away from her, and after putting on her shoes and despite me telling her to stay put and wait for me before she headed out for the door, she defiantly walked around me and ever. so.slowly. inched towards the gate (which essentially leads to the main road) WHILE looking at me with a “watch me and what are you going to do look” as I scrambled to get myself unstuck with her bag. I roared a stern holler as she turned the knob as she continued on putting 1 of her foot OUT of the door, while still eyeing me cautiously. I managed to yank her back in time and royally chided her for it. She was not too happy.

But! She has to know that some things are just not negotiable.

Spud jump-starts my heart way too often these days, resulting in me screeching and screaming as a reflex, more out of fear and anxiety rather than anger. Although I am quite an extreme nutcase when it comes to safety, it sometimes makes me wonder if I am just being protective. Road hazards aside, I sometimes wonder if I should just let her be and let her fall. At the same time, knowing how fearless and brazen Spud can be, the way she might fall when she did any of the above is not something I want to imagine happening for the fall may jolly well be quite a bad one indeed.

I’m thinking that Spud is also asserting herself more these days, and I’m sure she thinks she is an adult. She gets a little annoyed when you call her a baby and will come back with a retort, “No, not baby”. She does not want to be read to anymore at bedtime, preferring to do her own flipping and then telling us when she is done with her books before she starts climbing (trying to!) into her bed.

She is also starting to express herself better. Like when she tries to force me out of my own chair (whining unhappily away with a “Mama, no sit! No sit!”) and asking me to sit somewhere else so that she could sit in it. She won’t stop whinging and trying to pull me out until I get off my arse.

Her understanding of consequences has also somewhat improved in my observation. Recently, when we told her that she’ll not get to watch Penguin (Happy Feet) and Monkey (George the Monkey) until she eats her lunch or dinner (which seems to be a constant challenge for us), she seems to understand that and obliged by opening her mouth. So far (knock on wood!), that trick had worked and we have told the nanny to be consistent with that as well.

When she could not stop whining and crying the other day after she woke up from her nap, instead of me losing my head, I just told her calmly that she can continue crying and be sad and everybody will not be happy; or that she stops her nonsense and we can find loads of other happy things to do. I told her to choose and I’m just going to wait till she stops crying as I am not going to do anything. That seemed to get to her. And almost immediately, the crying stopped (I had to grin when I saw the unexpected effect and gave myself a pat on my back!)

Spud, despite all that, bless her, has not shown any signs of further rejections, and if anything, she has been quite kind and nice to me; asking for kisses and hugs. The other day, when I put her to bed, she melted my heart when she said, “Goodnight, Mama”.

With her soft, angelic voice accompanied by such earnest grin on her face, she had me bait, line and sinker! Endearing.

Just like this picture here as Spud insisted that she was going to try to carry that little kitten in her hands and shower the little bugger with kisses and affection.

And I thought I had nothing to update in her 21^stmonth of life!

Potty tales

Category: Baby Milestones

We bought Spud a potty for a while and a bit now.

So far it has been rather under-utilised as Spud prefers to inform us of her deed only AFTER she poos and then incessantly goes “Change, change, change…” as she grabs her rear, walks to her changing station and she goes on like a broken record until we follow her and actually change her.

A couple of weeks ago, she surprised me by telling me for the first time that she wanted to poo. Checking that her diaper was still clean, I figured, perhaps she really did want to poo. So, I quickly took off her diaper and have her sat on her potty. The deed was done in less than a minute. Despite trying really hard not to breathe in the stinky poop she had honourably laid upon me, I did beam with happiness when I saw what happened. To top it all, Spud had also seems to be really pleased with herself!

Her first tell-and-poo seemed like a success.

And of course, it was a fluke, too.

I have yet to catch a repeat of that one!

On the same day though, she decided that the next time she pooed, she was not going to tell me.

Instead, she chose to stick her hands INTO her soiled diaper and then whinged for a good 10minutes without even mentioning the word “Poo”. Honestly, I did not realize what had happened – I thought she was just being a drama queen and ignored her whining – and asked her to help me pick up her toys and put it aside (which she obliged! while whinging away) as I cleaned up the mess she made at her dinner table.

It was not until I was about to shower her when I was done cleaning up her mess did I realize what happened. There was poo all over her tiny little hands …and Horror! Horror! Horror! All over her toys which I had asked her put aside earlier as well!

No wonder she was whining away as she does not particularly like gooey and icky stuff (and smelly in this case!) on her hands.

Oh God! I did not know whether to laugh or to cry as I hurried her to the bathroom to clean her up. Poor little girl, and silly old me! I actually saw her ducking her hands into her diaper, but did not think anything of it just because she did not say anything. I guess I should have known better!

I guess it will be a matter of time now before we can expect Spud to smear her crap all over herself, her cot and her bed sheet when we pick her up from her bed one of these days….

All I can say is that at least all her toys were given a good scrub and a wash after we put her to bed that day!

These days, she sometimes tells us “Want Poo” and when we bring her to her potty, she treats it as a game. She pulls down (or tries to!) her pants, sits down, and after about 3 seconds, says “No. No more poo”, and then tries to put her diaper back on. It gets really tiring this, as she thinks that it is fun to do this over and over again. It is times like this that makes me want to ignore her…

For now, potty training is taking a back-seat. I reckon she will be ready when she is ready.

The joy of parenting – exciting as always!