Till "Death" Do Us Part...

Finally got to see Tim Burton's Corpse Bride with my gf earlier. Although we missed the 1st 10 minutes or so of the movie, we didn't miss the rest of it. Nice graphics and animation. A little drab but given the ghoulish factor, it wasn't too bad. Nice storyline but my gf found it uninteresting. Oh well, probably it was too short anyway. At roughly 1 hour 10 minutes in running time, it wasn't exactly the best of animated films anyway.

It did have some funny scenes but they were outnumbered by the constant reminder of death. The characters however were really interesting, like for example, the maggot side-kick of Emily, the widow spider, the pirate captain and of course, the dude with the body cut into two halves.. :p

In comparison with other animated movies like Chicken Run and even Wallace and Grommitt, I'd say those two win hands down. The Corpse Bride had a good storyline, but when you try and weave in stuff like murder and conspiracy, it gets just a little way beyond the "animated" factor. With the good animation and song pieces, I'd say it gets a few points, but the whole entertainment factor wasn't fully there.

Oh well, lets see how the next movie fares. Until next time.. Till "Blaah" Do Us Part..

The Myth.. continued..

Okay, did some research on the subject and there was a legendary general named Meng Tian in the Qin army. He did have a brother called Meng Yi, but that was just about it. The state of Dasar didn't exist in India if I recalled correctly. Even characters like Princess Ok-Soo and General Nangong Yan are fiction since I can't get anything from Google. Oh well, I suppose most of the story is just a good ol' story but it really got me thinking.

Since its just a movie based loosely on historical facts, I suppose they have the artistic licence to play around abit with known history and intertwine it with a little fiction. :)

Nice touch with the song sung by Jackie and Kim Hee Seon. Title was Endless Love and it was sung in Mandarin and Korean as a duet by both individuals. Now all I got to do is to find the MP3 or at least a clip so that I can listen to it again... hmm..

The Myth and a tale of levitating tombs

Finally watched Jackie's new movie on the legendary tomb of Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China. Interesting movie but there were several bloopers that I am sure did not go unnoticed by the viewers.

In one part if I recall correctly, the sword that belonged to General Meng Yi was exchanged with the Prince of Dasar after their duel over Princess Ok-Soo, or Concubine Li of the Qin. But the odd part is, in the scene where he tries to save General Xu Gui from the rebel ambush, he is actually using his OWN sword and not the sword of the Dasar Prince. Strange isn't it.. *scratches my head*

Nonetheless, there are tales on levitation and incarnation weaved into the storyline and it actually becomes slightly believable at times. The movie was average at best but add in the fight scenes and it becomes worthwhile to watch.. on a weekday though. :p

In The Dog Bowl

Going back into the 70's, Stacey Peralta's movie - The Lords of Dogtown - examines the lives of the 3 boys (Tony Alva, Jay Adams and Peralta included) and their friends who created the sport that's known as skateboarding. Skateboards were already available back then but it was the exploits of these 3 fellas from Venice Beach, California that ignited the spark in the sport with the high rolls and the flips from the skate ramps.

Improvising on drained out swimming pools during the drought that hit southern CA, they made a hit out of themselves on the competition circuit and actually made it a world-wide phenomenon.

Coming from very humble and sometimes troubled backgrounds, the boys started out as budding surfers with Peralta fumbling when it came to riding the waves. Nonetheless, he made good when he took part as an independent candidate during a competition and tied with his good friend, Tony Alva for 1st place, but due to some inept officials, Alva got disqualified and Peralta won the trophy.

And then the story goes deeper into the development of each character and the splits that made them fall apart.. Alva going for fame and fortune, Peralta going for the stable life and Adams remaining as the rebel at heart. All the actors played their roles well and I went home thinking alot more about skateboarding and its history.

Go watch it. You won't regret it. Thumbs-up for this excellent movie.

How bittersweet life is..

You're probably guessing what I'm going to write but nah, its not some melodramatic post on my daily life.

Anyway, its about the Korean movie A Bittersweet Life, starring Lee Byung Hun. Excellent action scenes and he's a very cool dude. I didn't want to watch it at first but after being egged on by my gf, ended up watching it. Really caught my attention there. The story's pretty predictable actually but it is indeed an excellent movie. Go catch it if you must. I won't do any spoilers here. :p

A Visit to Waseda Shibuya Senior High

As the post title says, I visited Waseda Shibuya Senior High School at West Coast yesterday on Sunday with my gf and her sis. Her sis's bf was supposed to come along but they had a last-minute change of plans. Oh well, I went along and I did enjoy myself a little.. nothing too special though. Anyway some images of the place.



Image of the front gate and the sign board the students created.



A replica of a kiddy-like golden lion gatekeeper statue. Looks cute huh? Check out the next one.



Here's the smaller of the two lions. I find this critter even cuter. Looks like a cross between the lion and a pygmy hippo. Hahahaha!!

Anyway, back to the stuff we did. We played some games in one of the classrooms. Me and my gf's sis managed to dig up two capsules during the treasure hunt game. I was made to dig in a small pit filled with pieces of styrofoam. Man.. that was fun. Being a big guy, I almost threw out all the styrofoam while digging for the prize capsules. End result? I won two sweets because the other capsule was a no-win capsule. I'm not sure what my gf's sis won though.

Then we played this game in which we had to fish out balloons with some water in them by using a curved "hook" tied with a pretty weak strand of rice paper?? Anyway, I managed to fish out 2 balloons for my gf and her sis. If the hook and the strand got soaked in water too long, when it comes to lifting the balloons out, the strand would break and you would lose the balloon. This was by far the hardest challenge.

And then came the ball-throwing game where we had to throw balls made of paper and masking tape at some numbered boards slotted into the window grilles. By hitting more down, we could put our names on the scoreboards. LOL, I sucked at this game. Had power but no aim. Cock-eye aaahh... My gf and her sis did better than I did and I'm sooo "pai seh" I lost to two girls. Oh well, its a fair result. *shrugs*

Murder.. she wrote

Aptly enough the title of this post. Another Filipino maid gets charged for the murder of her fellow countrywoman. Brings to mind the previous case of Flor Contemplacion, also a Filipino maid and hanged for the crime of murdering a fellow compatriot, Della Maga and the young son of Della's employers.

I suppose I'll see alot of SG flag burning go on in Manila if the maid is found guilty as charged and is sentenced to death. It is the irony of such situations whereby people tend to shift attention elsewhere when the problem is really much closer at home.

Migrant workers are always on the move and are usually away from their beloved families for many months in the year. Divided by a large distance and spurred by the need to support their families back home, sometimes I wonder, what would force these people to turn to crime? Its a difficult question to ask and perhaps even a criminal psychologist might have a problem in giving a proper analytical answer to that query.

Sometimes the feeling of loneliness can give way to odd thoughts and this is precisely what bothers alot of people. Heck, I'd go crazy if I didn't get to see my family every now and then. But crazy is as crazy does. Some people turn to finding solace with fellow compatriots, or in some cases, finding a temporary "soulmate" and perhaps a part-time partner to spend their time with.

In such situations, migrant workers usually band together according to their country of origin. I seldom see Bangladeshis mix with Filipinos, unless of course they're dating that is. The thing is, having a fellow compatriot that speaks the same language as you do and having the same customs as you actually makes a conversation a whole lot easier. Imagine two folks speaking two alien languages to each other and the whole conversation turns into a major comedic event. Its not hard to envisage a situation like that.

Now back to the main issue. Sometimes the real problems may lie closer to home and people are just oblivious to it. I bet many people still believe Flor was innocent but if she was, why did she not protest her innocence when she met with diplomatic staff from her home country? Why did she tell her side of the story to a prostitute while in jail, instead of saying it out aloud to people who could have helped her? Why she did that still boggles me. Read the link below to get a good piece of info on the case of Flor.

http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/6142/flor.html

Unfortunately she didn't escape the hang man. Even after being tried and convicted as a murderer, people practically sanctified her and turned her into a sort of martyr to showcase the plight of migrant workers all over the world.

My question is, if one cannot follow and adhere to the rule of the country where they're in, why bother even going there? If Singapore's laws are draconian, uninspiring or even boring, then why do they still come here? Respecting the laws of the land is one thing, breaking them is another. If they broke the law, regardless of who you are, one must always accept responsibility for his or her actions and accept the punishment regardless of how terrible it might be.

Sadly for some people, that is not the case. They thought they could get away with crime via a petition or diplomatic help but they forget, this is Singapore, not some lawless land in a crazy world that we all live in, and in Singapore, the men in blue are definitely the best law-enforcing outfit I know of. Perhaps Michael Fay might be able to tell you more about his prison time in SG and how shitty it was.

Skip the murders and foreign worker issues and you'll see, its a bigger picture out there.

Sedi-what?!!

On a sidenote, I read with great interest about 2 bloggers being charged with sedition in court for inciting racial hatred. I'm not in any position to judge but my two cents worth, they deserve what they get if racism was involved in their malicious posts whatsoever.

Racist bastards should live in the era of apartheid and perhaps if they became the oppressed, they might know how it feels like to be in the shoes of the people they hate so much. And to think the whole hullaballoo was about a question regarding dogs in taxis. A simple enquiry via the ST Forum page in the papers and it got some goons all flustered.

Funny that these goons also happen to be supposed "dog-lovers" who took offence at the comments of a lady who asked the question based on religious grounds. I'm not sure how that question would offend a normal person but these hotheads just had to shoot their mouths off without thinking of the consequences that might arise from their half-witted attempt at a barb against the lady's community and religion. Whatever pet peeves they might have with others, they simply had no right to denigrate a race or religion.

Under SG's laws, I'm not sure what the punishment for sedition is but I hope its big and nasty enough to deter other pea-brained attempts by others who might want to tread that same malicious path as those two.

Oh yeah, the charges on those two fellas really sent shockwaves in the blogosphere. Even the resident SG "king" of the glob.. not blog, (nick with-held since everybody or somebody knows him anyways..) himself, had some comments to make on the case on TV no less.. champion lah.

Free speech on the web is pretty free, but when it runs into murky waters and starts involving race and religion, rest assured that the authorities will not hesitate to come in like vultures and pick away at the nutjobs that thought they would be free to shoot their racist rhetoric online.

Parting Shot:

To the racists, whoever you may be, I hope that from being the perpetrator of racial hatred, may it backfire on you and turn you into the victim instead. Only then will you and your fellow goons understand how racism can affect a person deeply, and hopefully, affect you enough to change your ways.

Kong-ified!

Oh yes, I was Kong-ified alright. Finally succumbed to the lure of the big hulking gorilla and got myself an EZ-015 Iron Kong with a CP-11 Manuoevre Thruster Unit. Got it cheap in a bundle set.. you don't get this all the time and what can I say.. the lights in the cockpit are damn cool, at least to me and perhaps the fellow Zoids nuts out there. Here's a shot of the bugger with the lights in the cockpit.

















EZ-015 Iron Kong (with CP-11 Manuoevre Thruster Unit) - lights up mode

Its Simply Not My Desk!

Found a link while surfing for the term "beat box". Oddly enough I'm not into beat-boxing but got pretty interested when the DJ on 98.7FM was interviewing the only female contestant.. err.. Kyoko Mori I think, for the beat-box competition at the Liquid Room this Saturday. The winner gets to open for the Black Eyed Peas when they perform here in SG soon.

Anyway, go read the link, pretty excellent stuff and I love the cynical way the essays and stories are written.

Not My Desk - Temporary Insanity

Severed Body Parts

Yikes, another severed body parts case in SG. Some lady's severed head was found near Orchard MRT. Well I hope the police finds out who she is and gives her a decent burial. Catch the perpetrator and chop his head off too.

Blog Spammers

To people who just sign up for a blogger account just to spam, please don't. Restrict your LAME ASS activities to email and I'll be thankful for your "kind" gestures.

For the assholes who love to hack blogs, please stop your antics. Hacking doesn't get you anywhere. In fact if you fail to cover your ass aka trail, then the police will have a field day in whooping your ass. Don't believe me, go look at what happen to the freaks who unleashed viruses online. Don't be one of them and you'll save yourself from having some "quality" time in the cage.

Blog Wars

Hmm.. strangely enough the local SG blogging community has gotten quite enraptured with the on-going blog wars involving some famous blogging names like Xiaxue and Kenny Sia. Even our local queen of self-proclaimed SPGs aka SPG herself has gotten involved. Here's my take on the on-going war:

Man.. the war is simply spiralling out of control. Personal attacks are getting a little crude and underhanded at best and the worst part is that most of the attackers prefer to remain anonymous. Of course, the web gives one the opportunity of anonymity but if the hatred for one party is so high and people are taking potshots at these "poor" folk (read poor because they think they're being victimised) I think its only right that these people identify themselves and if they really have balls, go ahead and screw the ones they hate.

I don't like to judge but frankly speaking, who creates a hate site for her own self and maintained by herself? Publicity stunt aside, creating a big hooha on both sides of the Causeway by slamming Malaysian people in the capital city of KL only serves to inflame passions of two very competitive nations that were once united as one. When race is dragged into the picture, it really makes me seeth. Yes she (Xiaxue) has the right to complain and bemoan her experiences in KL but who gives a rat's ass if you got overcharged or you paid extra compared to what you would pay in Shenzhen? Damn.. its your own frigging fault if you didn't bargain or you didn't settle on a flat fee for the cab ride. Mind you, in Malaysia most cab drivers don't follow the meter. Perhaps her visits to Ipoh, JB and Melaka didn't TRAIN her enough to know that meters don't "apply" in Malaysia. I love Malaysia and frankly speaking, if she can create an online war between our brothers in Malaysia and Singapore, to hell with her experiences. And calling a Malay a fucker just because one Melayu failed to respond to her query only makes her look like a big buffoon. If I called a Chinese a fucker just because he/she didn't respond to a question I asked, is that warranted?

Xiaxue, if you're reading this, feel free to diss me all you like on that pink-addicted blog of yours but really, who gives a rat's ass on what you blog on nowadays? I won't sink to your level and make you look bad but please do look in the mirror the next time you think you're prettier than others. Most of your images look like they're Photoshopped. Editing images is OK but when you over-edit to electronically "enhance" your looks then believe me you're just afraid of your own look. Judging others doesn't mean others cannot judge you and slam you for your lack of tact or feeling when you slam other people. Deal with the insults and verbal shenanigans against you but then again, you only have yourself to blame. Like they say, you reap what you sow, so don't friggin' complain!

And by the way, Malaysia Boleh! and Singapore OK!

Ina's Wedding

Attended a good friend's wedding last Sunday but I forgot to post up the pic. Not very clear since I was shooting with my Nokia 6230's on-board cam but I think its pretty decent. We've been friends since secondary school and it was a good thing that she's finally settling down. Man.. she was a stunner in her traditional dress and headgear. Her husband better treat her right!
















The happy couple.. pretty tired too. I would be.. if I was them. Hmm.. so when's my turn? No $$$ so not yet. :p

Anyway, met up with some old pals at the wedding reception and I spent the entire wet afternoon (it was raining) with an old gal pal from my class. We had a great chat while having a round of dessert at Bukit Timah Plaza. Thanks for the chat Fiz, you know who you are. I thought I was getting paranoid about marriage but she's just as paranoid as I was! LOL

The Hamster Debuts..

Thought I'd share a pic of my bro's female hamster. The male decided not to be photogenic. :p
















Presenting.. gee I don't know the bugger's name?? What about.. Piglet, since she's always a fat ass anyway. Heh Heh Heh!

The Longest Yard... plus some add-ons

YES! Finally caught Adam Sandler's new movie - The Longest Yard. Excellent show, great humour and alot of sick jokes too. The final match between the Guards and the Prisoners was done well and Sandler did a great job as a quarterback. However the scene-stealers were the supporters and a very "sassy" cheerleading squad backing the prisoners. See the movie to catch what I mean... heh heh heh!

And today, I finally caught The Perfect Catch aka Fever Pitch. Nice romcom but not exactly top-notch. Good movie though, except for some hiccups here and there. The ending wasn't exactly great and it was a pity because the rest of it was quite nice to watch.

Thanks to a special someone, I finally got my hands on two limited edition Zoids units. Great fun building them and I am so damn happy I finally got them... at a good price too! Many thanks to the guys at The Falcon's Hangar for making my dream come true.

EPZ-03 Great Sabre (a souped-up version of the Saber Tiger / Zaber Fang with a custom CP-02 Assault Unit)
















RPZ-07 Shield Liger MK-II (another souped-up edition of the standard Shield Liger in a different colour combination and a set of GOLD-coloured CP-01 Dual Beam Cannons)
















In short, today was a SUPERB day.. and we topped it off with a meal at Swensens! Crayfish pasta anyone? :p