She mentions that he “employs classic Singaporean comedic devices (the fake phone call, the “I told you so” disclaimers, stating the obvious to the camera, and swearing in Mandarin in-between the English dialogue).” Be sure to look for those–I would have otherwise totally missed them as, you know, narrative and comedic devices.
I’ve known a number of Singaporean-Canadians in my life, so his accent and speaking cadence feels very familiar. And very Vancouver.
Noise-cancelling headphones reduce unwanted ambient sounds (i.e., acoustic noise) by means of active noise control. Essentially, this involves using a microphone, placed near the ear, and electronic circuitry which generates an “antinoise” sound wave with the opposite polarity of the sound wave arriving at the microphone.
I paid CAN $200 plus GST for mine, and was very happy with them. The earcups are soft, pliable and very comfortable. The whole headset is very light, and fits snugly around my enormous head. There’s even a convenient carrying case which can hold my iPod as well.
The actual noise reduction was pretty extraordinary–it really improved the experience of listening to music or audio books on my plane ride home. I no longer had to crank the volume up to 11 to compensate for the omnipresent background noise of the plane.
I brought them home to Malta, happy with my new purchase. A week later, for no particular reason (there was no, uh, trauma or anything), when I switched on the noise canceling functionality, the right earcup started generating this whistling, wind sound. It’s like the headphones are ‘hearing’ background noise that isn’t there, and trying to cancel it.
This is an extraordinary pain in the ass, as it’s kind of tricky for me to return them to the Best Buy on Cambie Street from rural Gozo. I guess I’m going to have to box them up and ship them home to some kind relative who will exchange them, and then send them back to me. Oy.
