Saturday, January 28, 2006
Thursday, January 26, 2006
The Best Five

Star Wars: Episode 3 - Revenge of the Sith

Cinderella Man

Goodnight, and Good Luck

Memoirs of a Geisha

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
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ding.
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Might as well call this the Chinese New Year break. Will be back in a few days.
Monday, January 23, 2006
Sisyphus and Prometheus
Truth be told, I was intrigued by the story of Sisyphus, from the way she told it to me, so I Googled and Wikipedia-ed him. Here goes, in my own words. I'll list the sources at the end.
Sisyphus is not sissy.
He was the son of Aeolus, the King of Thessaly and the founder of Corinth (Corinth really exists, if you recall in the Bible. Actually, most of the Greek places exist in the real world, but the characters, I'm not so sure. I actually think that a lot of Greek stories and Bible stories have similiarities, which leads me to believe that Greek Mythology is another means of interpretation of the Bible, abeit in a rather distorted way. That's why I'm fascinated I guess. But that's a topic for another day).
SO ANY Sisyphus was a cunning man. Sly and evil, as one website put it. He even tricked and trapped the god of the dead, Thanatos, causing the dead to not be able to enter the realm of the dead. So, Hades intervened and punished him (Now there are many versions to why Sisyphus got punished, but the point is he got punished)
He was punished to rolling this big block of stone up a very steep hill, only to have the stone roll back down the moment it reaches the peak. Then the process repeats itself over and over again for all eternity.
So his punishment is often used as a metaphor for "pointless or interminable activities".
You can read more here.
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Prometheus was a Titan. He was one of the more powerful Titan.
In ancient Greece, Titans were sometimes regarded as higher power than the gods.
Prometheus is credited in Greek myth as the dude who took clay from the earth and gave it life, therefore creating humankind as we know it. He's the creator of man, and woman.
But humanity was primitive, and slow to learn, and weak, and were looked upon as crappy beings by the gods. So Prometheus took pity on them and stole the fire of Zeus (the king of gods/god of thunder and lightning) and gave it to humans. Humans then progressed.
Zeus didn't like the idea that Prometheus stole his heavenly fire for the puny use of puny humans, so sentenced him to a punishment.
Prometheus was chained to a high cliff, where an eagle, Ethon, would fly by and eat his liver out.
Then, by the next day, he would grow a new liver, and Ethon would fly by and eat his liver out again.
and again.
and again.
Some say Zeus sentenced him to endure the liver eating thing for 30000 years. Luckily for him, Heracles (or Hercules) came by after 30 years and shot the eagle up to pieces.
You would think that's the end of it. But it's not. Zeus did not mind that Prometheus was rescued, for Heracles received added glory for his feat, and Heracles was the son of Zeus. Prometheus was eventually invited back to Olympus, the mount of gods, but he was forced to carry the rock in which he was chained to all the way back.
In other words, his punishment wasn't eternal, but his shame was.
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Now, what's my point.
Er.
I don't know.
Just felt like telling two depressing stories.
Which is worse, you think?
POH BEI YAN
So anyway, Bei Yan's nickname is Porkymon, cos one of our lecturers once commented that she looks like Pokemon.
Since Pokemon is copyrighted I twisted it a bit to call her Porkymon.
I know I'm mean sometimes.
*sometimes I call her Beefymon, since she always insists that she's a cow instead of pig.
Saturday, January 21, 2006
The Geisha Laugh
I have nothing to do with this message board thread. I promise. It's from IMDb.com about Memoirs of a Geisha. The thread title is "in reply to Chiense/Japanese diffrence question"
The first entry I'm pasting is the original posting. Then the following are some of the replies that I found interesting.
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Americans think all Asians look the same.
Asians thinks all Americans/Eurpoeans looks the same.
Asians can tell great difference among Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese, Vietnam.. oh yea and you know INDIA is also Asia, for American eyes to differenciate the great physical difference. Chiense and Japanese ARE racially different, not metioning that intermarriage is JUST starting to blend the races.
Chiense and Japanese DO LOOK TOTALLY DIFFERENT. but taht does not matter to an American eye as much as it matters to Asian eyes... yes, they act different too... but I thought the movie trained the actresses well in terms of gesture.
Back in the days around 70's / 80's remember myriad hollywood movies used Vietnamese to substitute Chiense roles? that is halarious because they DO NOT look chinese at all... just wanted to throw that out.
Oh and another thing is - history. Chinese and Japanese have a bitter history (WWII) believe it or not, its only 50 years ago, and ppl still remember. The three actresses that played the role are currently being spit upon by the mainlanders, the movie is banned in China.
I love all races -
ok.. thats all...
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When you say American, do you mean white? Because I'm also an American, and I for sure as hell ain't white. This post is pretty offensive to me, because you're trying to make a point that Asians can't be Americans as well...
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I dont mean to generalize...
of course Asians can be Americans.
its just known that a lot of Americans cant tell the difference between Chiense and Japanese... not saying all of them u know..
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One thing should be corrected. Taiwan is one part of china, so the people living in there are also chinese!
And I don't know whether u r asian. As a chinese, I only can tell the difference among east asians by the way they dressing and the language they speaking.
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"Taiwan is one part of china, so the people living in there are also chinese ..
is arguable"... its a sensitive political topic.
There is actually a group of Taiwanese that is pure bread Taiwanese, but later Taiwan's populated by Chinese from China that decided to flee from Communism.
People still debate if Taiwan is part of China, but for now they have seperate government systems and presidents.
And Yes, Living in Taiwan for 20 years, I can tell the difference between pure bred Taiwanese and Chinese. Of course, the line of difference in the world is becoming thinner and thinner due to intermarriages.
that all..
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Don't Native Taiwanese only make up about 3-5% of the entire island!?
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here is a liquor store owner near to where I live who I constantly thought was Korean. He is bulky, round face, single eyelid, pointed nose, small lip, and since the majority of the Asian liquor store owners in America are Korean, so you would just assume he is Korean by first sight. But one day when I heard him having conversation with his wife in Mandarin Chinese, I found out he was actually Chinese.
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I'm afraid to say that you are talking utter rubbish.
You CAN tell the difference between people from Vietnam, Thailand from China, Japan and Korea.
But you can hardly tell the difference between somebody from Japan and China by looks alone. Sure, their clothes or their mannerisms might give them away. But just their looks? No way. You just like to think that you can.
Also, how can you tell the difference between people from Taiwan and China?! Crazy.
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There are zero differences between Americans and Canadians... Unless, you're talking about Natives, all they are are a bunch of imigrants from Europe, Africa and Asia...
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hello, yes there is a difference between canadians and americans. thats like saying australians and kiwis are the same! or austrians and germans!
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"""But I'm pretty sure that most Spanish would be able to tell Italians apart from themselves (and vice versa)since they have been living in that region all the time."""
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-end-
I like having a good read about brainless things.
Friday, January 20, 2006
A Degree in Humanities
Over my last few weeks of work I've come across some really silly things about Universities and Colleges in Malaysia and world over.
I won't go into websites with BM standard of English or anything of that sort. I'll just give you an example of an intelligent mistake.
Here's one from St. Patrick's University. It's word perfect. But.
PD103 B.A. DEGREE IN HUMANITIES
The B.A. in Humanities is three-year Honours Degree programme.
The degree of B.A. in Humanities is intended to provide students with an opportunity to gain a deep and abiding knowledge and understanding of different academic disciplines. In each subject area the main emphasis will be on acquisition of the knowledge and skills which are intrinsic to that discipline. Students will be expected to read widely, critically and perceptively; and to reflect on their reading and articulate their responses in accordance with the tradition of discourse within a discipline.
The degree will enable students to undertake a variety of tasks and responsibilities in areas such as communication, education and management. It will also provide an excellent basis for enterprising and imaginative endeavour in the spheres of cultural, social and civic activity.
Now, can anyone tell me what a B.A. in humanities is about, based on the above description?
Boycott BAFTA
Anyway, I will give you a hint of why I am boycotting this year's BAFTA thing.
ACHIEVEMENT IN SPECIAL VISUAL EFFECTS
BATMAN BEGINS - Janek Sirrs/Dan Glass/Chris Corbould
CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY - Nick Davis/Jon Thum/Chas Jarrett/Joss Williams
THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE - Dean Wright/Bill Westenhofer/Jim Berney/Scott Farrar
HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE - Jim Mitchell/John Richardson
KING KONG - Joe Letteri/Christian Rivers/Brian Van't Hul/Richard Taylor
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I think something is missing up there. My favorite show has been excluded from every single technical category.
You know which show I'm talking about right?
Come mid February I'm going to change my blog banner into a full blown campaign ad for my chosen film for 2005.
Ok I sound like some kiddie fanatic.
But I don't care!!!
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
Johnny BOY!
The point is.


John Williams has done it again. I've been saying to some people that this year John Williams should get a triple nomination in the Oscars for Star Wars, Geisha, and Munich (though I've not seen Munich, but can imagine it being top of the range in terms of score). I'm sure Star Wars won't get nominated because rarely do sequels get nominated (LOTR and Harry Potter are anomalies)
But Hey I saw Geisha just last night, and hey, with a solo-ist like Yoyo Ma and a violinist like Itzhak Perlman, combined with a composer like Johnny boy Williams, WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG???!!!
John Williams for the Oscars. The only person he can lose to is himself, for Munich (or very very unlikely, Star Wars: Episode 3 - Revenge of the Sith)
More vids.
Here you go. Click the title to view the show.
The Wife-less Guitarmen
Psycho 2: Mystery of the Predator
Sunday, January 15, 2006
No, not you silly girl.
It's YOU.
No, not you. What's your problem, why are you so perasan?
I miss her! not you! No... not her... but HER.
Oh my goodness.
Saturday, January 14, 2006
And don't forget to scroll down to see a very good pic.
Scroll down to the previous post.
Friday, January 13, 2006
Superratty Films presents...
I first talked about making Lov about six, seven months ago, after The Door, and after making Captivation and lazing around with an infinite amount of other ideas without doing anything, I'm back to doing Lov.
It's in the final stages scripting. Here's the confirmed cast so far. It's not complete, but here goes...
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From left, Aaron Lee, Rachel Chew, Kerry-Ann Augustin, Joanne Soo, and Chung Jia Xin
A few quick comments. Aaron has established himself as, well, a prominent actor in Monash Comms after Police Story, Man, and Takau. So I'm going with the flow.
Rachel is well, Rachel. The above pic is pretty much how her role will look like, only uglier, or prettier. Depending.
Kerry-Ann is making a comeback to my films after wanting a break from people stereotyping her with playing dirty characters in Psycho and The Door. (She's playing a dirty character in this show. ha.)
Joanne is well... you won't get to see her face in the show. It's not that she's ugly. It's just that you won't see her face in the show.
JX has been bugging me to give her a role in something. So I let her. She's so beautiful, she's only useful for you know, a specific type of character. Use your imagination.
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So here are some of the people who will be working behind the cameras as well as after the filming process.






from left: TMY (writer/director), Shazzy (d.o.p.), Bei Yan (composer), Fikri (script revisions), Wilson (editor), Sze Mun (P.A. to TMY/assistant editor)
Quick note:
Sze Mun is the new P.A. to TMY, after Sze Ning started working. She enjoys making TMY coffee, yelling at him for no reason, and telling him he's handsome 24/7.
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okay if you are blur about everything that has been written so far. It's like this: This whole bunch of dingheads from Monash loves making short films and documentaries for fun. So the above are many of the people involved in our assignment-delaying hobbies.
One day we'll set up a site with complete details.
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p/s Superratty Films updates will be posted here for now since my film blog is undergoing reconstruction.
Thursday, January 12, 2006
MENTAL TOYS AWARDS!!!
The voting has been interesting, for both polls. I will present the awards in the following sequence:
1. Voters Person of the Year
2. TMY's Person of the Year
3. Voters Idiot(s) of the Year
4. TMY's Idiot(s) of the Year
So here goes...
The winner for the Voters' Person of the Year is...

CHICKEN LITTLE!!!
He surged into the lead in the polls right at the end of the polling period, much to my amazement, beating out the two other contenders, Nicol David and Darth Vader/Obi-Wan by a very slim margin. Certainly his effort and success in saving the planet from sky-like aliens has paid off.
TMY's Person of the Year is...

NICOL DAVID
My friend Fikri, when seeing the results, said to me that he wonders what does it take for a Malaysian to win a people's choice award? She's the British Open champion, World Champion, 2005 Women's Squash Player of the year, and the new Women's World No.1. She's the Person of the Year in my book. Period.
VOTERS' IDIOT OF THE YEAR
Ding......

CHICKEN LITTLE!!!
The first double win in the history of Mental Toys awards!!! Surely this is an anomaly that cannot be explained! His world saving antics must have angered some!!!
TMY's IDIOT(s) of the Year

MANCHESTER UNITED!!!
FOR WINNING ABSOLUTELY NOTHING IN 2005. hee. hee. WOO HOO.
This is the one occasion I don't mind putting up a Manchester United logo on my blog.
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Be back next year.
Monday, January 09, 2006
on a mission to get my attention


Shieh Jeanne making faces at me (left) and Shieh Reine eating jagung.
Today, when I came back from a church meeting, Shieh Jeanne greeted me while I opened the house door. She said, "Eh Shu Shu (uncle) did you go to the bablawjehr shop??"
"WHAT?"
"Did you go to the barbershop? Did you cut your hair?!"
"Er. No, I didn't go to the barbershop to cut my hair."
I am very sure my mom bribed her to do that.
"Then you must go out again! Or I willPUNCH YOU!!!" Jeanne threatened me.
"Punch la," and I pointed my backside at her. Then she punched me.
Sunday, January 08, 2006
My list: Best Visual Effects
I'll be running through only these categories
Best picture, best actor, best actress, best supporting actor, best supporting actress, best cinematography, best visual effects, best original score, best film editing, and maybe the screenplay category.
I can't really go all out on this yet as there's a list of films I've yet to watch that I'm sure will drastically alter my current choices, most notably: Jarhead, Crash, Brokeback Mountain, Memoirs of a Geisha, Good Night and Good Luck and of course, Munich.
So I'll go with the category that I'm extremely SURE the above films won't be able to alter in any way, which is best visual effects. This is basically achievement in CGI stuff. Note that the other person I talk to about CGI most is my brother, and while we generally agree on the good ones, I think we usually disagree on the BEST one.
So, the best three films in terms of achievement in visual effects are...

King Kong. It really is quite amazing, the way Kong is created. It's pretty much the same as Gollum, in terms of how's it's done. But to see Kong act with Naomi Watts and Adrien Brody and tear through the jungles without looking stupid must mean King Kong really looks like King Kong.

Sin City. There is a school of though that says that the best computer graphics are those that you can't see. That is so because it is so well done it passes off as a real physical presence. I don't agree with that statement much, mostly because when CGI is used to create something out of this world, no matter how well it's done, we would know that that "something" is not of eartly presence. We see it. But Sin City is testament that the above hypothesis can be true sometimes. It's the most visually creative film I've seen, and it's set in what, the old days? Wee.

Star Wars: Episode 3 - Revenge of the Sith. With over 2200 visual effects shots, (more than Episodes 1 and 2 combined) RotS is the most sophisticated visual effects film ever made, and let me say this. Not a single shot was wasted or unneccesary. From the opening battle sequence above Coruscant (which I consider one of the best space battles EVER) to the forests of Kasshyyk, to the lava of Mustafar, RotS is now the new benchmark for computer graphics.
Notable ommisions: War of the Worlds, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
Quite naturally, my choice of winner is Star Wars 3 lah.
Friday, January 06, 2006
1 u
"1 Utama Shopping Center in Bandar Utama is marking the year 2006 by doing away with the Old and New Wings. The shopping center said that it would known as the 1 Utama Shopping Center."
Wow. What a change. So now we either go to that side of the complex or that side of the complex.
Ding.
Then again, 1 Utama does have a tendency to be redundant. ONE = UTAMA.
Oh well.
Ding.
Thursday, January 05, 2006
I'm joining the party in Munich and Japan
For those of you who follow the entertainment news, there has been a volcano of controversy surrounding Steven Spielberg's latest film, Munich. A lot of the hoo-haa took place before the release of the movie, and even more hoo-haa has come about after the release of the film. Mostly, a lot of hoo-haa is not about the film at all!

For those of you who's a little bit blur, this is the deal. Steven Spielberg, entertainment icon for the jews (since making Schindler's List), made Munich. The movie takes place right after the 1972 Olympics in Munich, where Israeli atheletes were held hostage by the Palestinian terrorist group Black September. The atheletes were all killed. The movie goes on to show how the Israelis organized a hit squad to assassinate all those involved, one by one.
So far, all of the above sounds harmless, because it is inspired by true events anyway, in a ver vague sense. That's what's the movie is about anyway.
The controversy stems from the way Spielberg has presented the entire story. Some call it pro-Israeli, while some call it pro-Palestine, simply because Spielberg (as he has very cleverly done in the past) is the master of bringing out the human element in each of his characters, even in his plain-fun movies. By doing so, he portrayed the both sides of the parties in less favorable ways to the other party. He, as a filmmaker, for his own reasons, did what he did.
I haven't seen the movie, so I can't tell you for nuts if it's a good movie or not. But here are a few good articles. Actually, I'm going to give you one article only. It's the one written by Roger Ebert's editor, about all the criticisms directed at the movie. I sincerely agree with him, even though I haven't seen the movie.
Which is actually the whole point, seeing the movie. People aren't reviewing Munich as a film so far, really. I'm a staunch Spielberg supporter, so I shall refrain from commenting on anything about the film, in and out of context, until I have seen it.
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Part 2: Memoirs of a Geisha
The other big buzz in film industry lately is about Memoirs of a Geisha, the film adaptation of the famous Arthur Golden book.

The buzz is about the casting, actually. Many Japanese and Chinese people alike are critisizing the choice of actresses, namely Zhang Ziyi, Michelle Yeoh, and Gong Li, who are Chinese (Michelle Yeoh is from Malaysia, not mainland China), to play the celebrated Japanese roles.
Maybe there's a certain amount of Japanese-Chinese tension behind all that, which I understand. That has been the case for many years. But let me point something out.
Cast list for the lead Rangers/Delta forces in Black Hawk Down (a movie about American soldiers in Somalia)
Josh Hartnett (USA)
Ewan McGregor (Scotland)
Jason Isaacs (UK)
Tom Sizemore (USA)
William Fichtner (USA)
Eric Bana (Australian)
Sam Shepard (USA)
Ewen Bremner (Scotland)
Tom Hardy (UK)
Hugh Dancy (UK)
More than half the leading cast for such a big shot film used Brits to represent Americans! I don't see any complaints about "THE UNITED KINGDOM ONCE COLONIZED US!". Yes they are all allies now, but no one really complained.
Then let's take another example... Hmm. Let's use the highest rated film on IMDb.com. The Godfather. It's about the Italian mafia in USA. Okay
Marlon Brando (USA) No Italian blood. There's French, Dutch and English blood, though. No Italian.
Al Pacino (USA) Despite his Italian name, he has hardly any Italian blood.
Okay Okay. Anyway. One can argue that at least Black Hawk Down used some Americans in the lead roles and maybe you can argue that Al Pacino has a bloodline of Italians. So... Memoirs of a Geisha have Ken Watabane.
Only problem is... most people say he's a hollywood-ized and Americanized Japanese actor. Let's find out how true is this... Let's take a look at his career.
Ken Watanabe has made 24 movies to date. Only 3 of which are made in Hollywood, the rest are Japanese films made in Japan. From 1984 to 2003, he made only Japanese films, until he acted in Ed Zwick flick "The Last Samurai", in which he acted as a Japanese Samurai anyway.
In terms of recognition, he was nominated for the Oscars in 2004 for The Last Samurai. However, before that, he was nominated 3 times for the Japanese Academy Awards, the Japanese equivalent of the Oscars in 1999, 2002, and 2003, for his performances in JAPANESE FILMS.
So... unless you're saying that Oscar nominations and ONE successful performance in a Hollywood film makes you an Americanized character (Jean Reno, that means you as well. And Roberto Benigni, you as well. And Hayao Miyazaki, you sold all your film rights to Disney and won an Oscar for Spirited Away didn't you? Oh, that means you too... Jean Pierre Jeunet, that's you as well.), then world cinema is doomed!
DOOMED!
Just watch the bloody movie, will ya?
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ding.
The Oscar Shortlist for Best Visual Effects, 2006
Basically, Oscar consideration is a series of shortlists. Take the best picture ballot, for example. There were about 300 feature films released in 2005. So the nominating ballot goes out and they shorten the list to maybe 20 or so, then down to 5. Bla bla.
The visual effects field, which celebrates the achievement of computer graphics in film, is a much smaller field of choices, obviously. Probably maybe around 30 - 50 films (or less) use visual effects excessively.
Anyway, here's the shortlist. Of which 3 will be selected as the official nominees for the Oscars...
King Kong
Batman Begins (??!!)
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
War of the Worlds
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe (??!!)
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
STAR WARS: EPISODE 3 - REVENGE OF THE SITH
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Personally (and here the squirrels from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory come and knock my head, then tell me it's empty, or "bad nut"), Star Wars 3 should be considered for Best Picture.
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
Categorizing Women with Sarah and Girl TMY
So anyway, while I was being lazy at work just now I had a short chat with her on MSN and we were talking about... something, which led me to categorizing women/girls/females/anything with a skirt(and sometimes jeans) that can potentially attract me.
Basically it's the level of attractiveness. Doesn't matter how. It's most about how severe the attractiveness is.
Stage 1 - A wisp of smoke
Stage 2 - Fast food
Stage 3 - A train of thought
Stage 4 - Being stuck in a 5 day camp
Stage 5 - picking smooth stones for flinging
Stage 6 - Suffering
Doesn't matter if you don't get it. This post is for recording purposes. I know how to describe it.
Oh last time, I was talking to Girl TMY, and we were talking about people, and I popped a question, "So, on a scale of 1 - 10, what was your lust level?"
So that's another way of measuring attractiveness. In a more physical perspective.
VIOLA
This is the post to waste your time,
Waste your time
Waste your time
This is the post to waste your time
now you can run away







