more than 24 hours have passed since i posted my shooting-up picture.

well.

Here goes.



That's what I'll do soon.

Figure

So I figure that of late I've been doing a number of things that have ruffled some feathers (and in cases pulled them right out)

That's that.
Tis' a season, and it will pass.
Not saying I'm always right. Just saying that it will pass.

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"Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten."
- G.K. Chesterson

I'm gonna start shooting people soon if my stress level doesn't decrease within 24 hours. Haha.

Fabio!!! Fabio!!!

And so, my all-time favorite football defender (yes officially, this player has exceeded my liking of Paolo Maldini. Okay, Maldini is still the greatest defender I've seen, but this player is my favorite) won the European Footballer of the year award. He's one of the rare defenders to win the award.



Fabio Cannavaro stuff:

(1) Captained Italy to their World Cup triumph recently. Single handedly manhandled the so-called 'danger man' of every opponent. My favorite moment was when Thierry Henry was charging forward and ran into Cannavaro, who was just standing there. Henry literally ran into a wall, got knocked out for a few minutes and was in a daze.

And another testament to his greatness is the fact that he never received a single booking throughout the competition despite playing the position that he plays, which is a minefield of bookings.

(2) Cool thing about him is that he acknowledged Juventus when interviewed. He's one of the many superstars to leave poor Juve when they got sentenced to a relegation. But he made it clear he'll bring the award to Turin because after all, his Award Winning year took place while he was playing for Juventus.

(3) Speaking of Juventus. He was the rock at the back with goalie Gigi Buffon, who finished second in the European Player of the Year race.

(4) I remember when I first saw him in 1998 when he was young. He was good, but it was still Maldini's time. Until the match against France, when he got his head bashed up (probably either by Petit or Deschamps or Vieira or one of those stupid French ruffians), he went off the pitch, put on a face mask and came out to continue stopping the ball. He looked very much like spiderman. That was when I thought, "this is one very cool guy". Italy lost that match. Sigh.



(5) Okay a bit of a negative. In the 2000 European Championship, Cannavaro and Nesta formed the most powderful defense in footballing history (I'm exagerrating), and Italy was 1-0 up against France in the final. But. BUT. Cannavaro made a fumble during injury time and France scored back and eventually won the match. It was the only time I remember seeing him make a mistake on the pitch, and it cost Italy the Euro. Well, he's moved on and destroyed France recently for the World Cup so all is good.

(6) He's Italian. By now, my dear readers, you should know that my football nationality is Italian (unless one day Malaysia makes it to the World Cup, then I'll be Malaysian). So naturally I am happy.

Fabio!!! Fabio!!! Fabio!!! Fabio!!! Fabio!!!

i want my life back

I'm actually in the middle of writing my thesis now and I'm very bored.
To be honest, I'm really itching to make a film.
Any film.
Or finish writing a story.
Any story.

Never mind that it doesn't get me a certificate or a check.

I just want to make something.

So here's a list of ideas that has been sizzling in my head. The thing that I've learned is that it's okay if your current ideas, no matter how fascinating, never happens. I think I have by now 5 or 6 short films that I would've made instead of the ones that I actually made if I had different opportunities at different times.

So currently, I want to make:

MI:007
It's time for a crossover. James Bond meets Ethan Hunt, with a tinge of Charlie's Angels. In my head I have Josh and Abel to be Bond and Hunt, but I haven't told them yet, and I wonder if they'll do it. Might steal them during their holidays. The hard part is getting the Bond girl. I should name her Ah Lien.

Pieces of Light
Something about shadows falling in love. It involves filming at a beach (a friend has been promoting Desaru, Johor), and other random places where shadows can be conjured. But mostly I think this is the 'final' piece of my romance trilogy. Not saying I won't make love stories anymore since it's my blood that I love love stories. But you know, let's just pretend it's my last. I have no cast in mind, but if I indeed go to Desaru, the most convenient girl to use would be Lynette since she's one of the johorians who live on trees. And I'll have to drag some guy down as well.

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After that, retirement perhaps?

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Sigh. So many bridges and I have only one pair of legs.

Wish I'm really Superman or something.

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Ding.

Remote Control

i have a lot a lot of photos to show, but unfortunately the last two times i've been spending time photographing, i've been using vincent lgs' camera, so i have to wait for him to burn the stuff for me. I have this Avril Lavinge/Rockstar/Shake da Planet pic of Susie, yelling her song and slamming the guitar till there were cracks on the floor.

Narrowly avoided being sick over the weekend. Sometimes I wonder, is it easier to ensure one full day of being struck with fly, or trying to avoid being sick (meaning to say, being constantly on the edge of falling sick) for 3 or 4 days. I do wonder. It makes doing everything painful. Plus my back has been acting up lately.

Today I went to watch Battle of Wits with Meng Hong and Sizzledrizzle, then as we were heading off to lunch we saw lynetteannadanielchienaun and thought, is the entire cf coming to town or something. Haha.

I finally got my maxis hotlink line registered. It took me about 2 minutes. When the woman was swiping my mykad and geting my info i felt like i was selling my life away to some mobile telecommunications company.

I am getting there with my stupid thesis. There but not quite there. I have about 2 and a half weeks to finis it. After that it's camp/bday/christmas party/christmas dinner/christmas/makenewfilm/finiswritingsomeunfinishedstuff/newyear then get a job.

I've been on a massive they-say-when-you-meet-the-love-of-your-life-time-stops campaign. It's like election year you know. Lol. So, if this is your first time on this blog, they say when you meet the love of your life, time stops, and that's true.

To susie, who is hopefully healthier now, let me say this again. Love should never be a secret. If you store something as complicated up inside, you'd go sick.

Uncle piao, if you're reading this. Say hi to auntie ju.

Current score for the TMYs minesweeper flags sushi challenge. Boy TMY - losing. Girl TMY - winning by margin so small it'll be overtaken in a day.

Movie ratings
Casino Royale 007 - B- (Pre-movie release Craig critics please zip your mouth/pull your teeth out cos I think it's quite... clear... that your moviegoing experience is not as rich as Daniel Craig's acting experience. Wrong predictions is one thing. Baseless predictions is another. By this I mean you guys have not watched Road to Perdition, Layer Cake and/or Munich before saying "this dude can't be bond la". Turns out he's alright. And he doesn't give a damn whether his Martini is shaken or stirred.)

Battle of Wits - C (watch out for the army. Nicely done.)

The Departed - A (Jack Nicholson is a must watch madman)

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Girl TMY just beat me again.

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I watched The Island again, and realized that Steve Jablonski's musical work on the film is fantastic. The thing about these Remote Control Studios musicians (formerly Media Ventures) is that these young composers sometimes come up with something good, then score 5 bad films, then sometimes they make it sometimes they don't.

Generally people complain that Hans Zimmer has too much control over the musical talents in his company. But I think he's the only big name composer in the industry who is actually actively making a platform available for new talents just by sharing the credit with them. Many say it's ghostwriting/zimmer being lazy. I think if I were a young composer, I'd love to share a credit with him.

And there are those who have made it to the top, and some arguably matching Zimmer in terms of talent. Harry Gregson Williams is my favorite. Then you've got James Newton Howard. And John Powell and Klaus Badelt.

Originally this was gonna be a LONG LONG post about Remote Control studios but decided to shrink it.

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Peanut Butter

I like eating bread. Whenever I am in a hungry mood in the middle of the night or early in the morning or whenever whenever, I usually make sandwiches. I make chocolate sandwiches and peanut butter sandwiches most of the time. Of course sometimes I make the complicated thing with cucumbers and salads and all that sort of stuff and all that meat and that sort of meat and so on and so forth. But the fastest sandwich to make is either chocolate or peanut butter.

I like peanut butter sandwiches because for some reason it goes well with my Milo panas. I used to complain that peanut butter is too sticky but then if you take a sip/gulp of hot Milo after every bite of your peanut butter sandwich, it almost feels like peanut butter is one food that heaven must have in its great feast (apart from durians, bak kut teh, satay, pollo lasagna, belacan kangkung and really good ice cream, and coffee. Preferrably latte.)

Then there was a season in my life where out of boredom I'd take a small spoon, scoop up peanut butter straight from the jar, and eat it just like that. Basically I just let it melt and after that I'll thirst like nobody's business.

Then recently I tried peanut butter soup at a place in SS15. It tasted like melted peanut butter. I quite liked it. Of course after that I felt thirsty cos it's a very dry soup.

Then yesterday, I wondered, would it be possible to make peanut butter jelly. I mean, we have peanut butter this and that. Why not peanut butter jelly?

Just a thought.

I like judging these books by their covers

A few months back I started reading a 6 issue special for The Eternals, written by Neil Gaiman and illustrated by John Romita Jr. I've read 5 of 6. Now waiting for the last one.

The best thing about these comics is not the Gaiman writing (it's okay) or the Romita art (it's actually pretty good) but rather, the cover designs by Rick Berry. Each cover features a prominent character from the series. There are other covers by different artists, but the Berry ones are a work of ooh and wows.







I actually Googled him and found his official website. If you're itnerested, you can check out his art at this link

morning passages

"But the liberal deviseth liberal things; and by liberal things shall he stand."
- Isaiah 32:8

"... for the LORD seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart."
- 1 Samuel 16:7b

Grace Tag Me I got No Choice

10 Firsts--
First Best Friend > Vincent Ng. He's the son of a family friend of sorts. Knew him since 2 years old. Still one of my best friends.
First Screen name > If this means the first character I played on screen. I suppose it's Ah Beng.
First Pet Name > First I can't remember. Most memorable is Yoyo.
First Piercing > Sometime in the future if I'm allowed to
First Crush > I haven't quite crashed into anyone with my car yet.
First CD - It's one of those Hans Zimmer CDs... or was it U2
First School - Tadika Yew Yee
First Cries - After birth. I think when I'm hungry.
First Kiss - There was this girl who kissed me in kindergarten. I think she might have liked me.
First Car - Really can't remember. I have many cars. Toy ones.

9 Lasts--
Last Time You Smoked > I tried smoking salmon during chinese new year. Does that count?
Last Food You Ate > Fried chicken
Last Car Ride > Girl TMY fetching me home from steamboat with classmates.
Last Movie You Watched > Casino Royale
Last Phone Call > To Piao.
Last Bubble Bath You Took > Can't remember.
You Listened To > Am listening to Evanescence.
Last Words You Said - I'll say it now. They say when you meet the love of your life, time stops, and that's true.

8 Have You Ever--
Dated A Best Friend > Define best.
Been Arrested > Well when I meet the love of my life, my heart goes into an arrest. So yeah. Got.
Been on TV > Nopers.
Eaten Sushi - Love it.
Cheated On Your B/F or G/F > While playing games/sports, I cheat all the time.
Been On A Blind Date > Yeah when the chick is so good looking it's blinding.
Been Out Of The Country > Out of the planet. I'm from Krypton.
Been In Love > Of course!!!

7 Things You Are Wearing--
1 > peanuts shirt
2 > holy shorts
3 > underwear
4 > good looks
5 > nothing
6 > else
7 > matters

6 Things You've Done Today
1 > Finished reading parts 1 - 5 of The Eternals. by Neil Gaiman and John Romita Jr.
2> Slept a lot.
3 > DotA.
4 > Wrote some words for my thesis.
5 > Made some calls.
6 > Defecated.

5 Favorite Things (not in any order)--
1 > Rabbits
2 > Prawns
3 > Jellyfishes
4 > Matches
5 > Dan Lain Lain.

4 People You Most Trust--
1 > dun
2 > wan to
3 > offend
4 > people

3 Things You Want To Do Before You Die--
1 > I want to live
2 > and live
3 > and live

2 Choices--
Vanilla or Chocolate - Chocolate
Hugs or Kisses - Can't I have both?

1 Person You Want To See Right Now--
hunnybunnies. (ok maybe not plural)

Tag--
I don't care.

Bridges to Come

I crossed a bridge today.
The one linking my office block and the monash block.
friend of mine pointed it out to me as we were walking across it that we were quite literally crossing a bridge.

i thought it was quite lame.
but i laughed.

hm.

... as long as i thought i had a chance

Other Places

Been a while since I used my camera to smack random things. Here are pics of my nieces.




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Here's my next movie. It's not a REAL movie. It's just a mock poster I did for fun. You MUST click the pic to enlarge it.



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And, a question occured to me today. Some people love to travel, see different places, try new things, even if it's a totally different culture.

I wonder if animals feel the same. What if I showed flowers to a prawn, or a jellyfish? Hm.

Photographing God

So just a couple of hours ago I attended the Sunway Monash Christian Fellowship for the last time as an official 'active' student member (I say official active student member because there's always this thing about how once a member, forever a member. Like how we treat Peter. Or maybe it's a distinction for him only and not for me. Perhaps I'm permanently erased from the books. No matter. I am perasan.) and I was the photographer for the day, for the last time.

Now I am waiting for Vincent to copy the photos and burn a set for me. While waiting, let me try to write my first post-CF thing.

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I described jokingly that life in CF was (notice I am using the term 'was') like a T.V. series. A good T.V. series. Spent 4 years in Monash, spent 4 years in CF.

Season1 I bumbled and stumbled into CF
Seasons 2 and 3 was the most humbling years of my life cos I had to work under a womannn, Susie. It wasn't that bad. She was okay. It's just the speed in which she eats. She makes the entire CF waits for her. Okay. I just had to insult her. I wrote cell-notes every other week, and I kept the wolves off the women. I think.

Season 4 was my retirement year. Here I must mention Susanna again, just so I don't feel like the only old person left in CF.
I still did some odd stuff here and there. And quite frankly, I had to keep the wolves off the women again. It's really not the only thing I've ever done well for Cf, really. But it's a thing anyway.

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So today was the last day of CF for me. The series 'finale', since I'm on the TV series theme.

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Today I spent a good amount of time taking pictures when people were praising and worshipping God. And I enjoyed that tremendously. The lifted hands. The wincing (in a good way) expressions. The passionate singing. For once I thick-skinned myself (I'm not in the habit of photographing worship sessions cos I always feel the flash and clicking is a bad distraction, plus worship is a rather personal/private matter to me) and snapped people during the songs.

I told myself that I want to take a picture that when people look at it, they can see worship. No need for further explanation.

I wanted to photograph God.

Now I doubt that out of the 200+ or so photos actually contains a picture of God's tangible face or a tangible God putting his arm around Liang when he was posing or anything of that sort. And I'm not sure I managed to take a picture that represent the most ardent worship in a sublime way.

But truly, just by pressing the lens at people's faces. focusing fo the clearest possible view, I took a good look at many different people... Young and old, fat and thin, sock-like and shoe-like. dory-like and otherwise, I took a picture, or two/or more, of the Big Guy.

My 4 years in CF flashed along, the note-taking, mahjong paper scrawling, Michael Thai insulting, gluttoning (of sorts), dissent management, picture taking, camp pranks, love stories, monkey attacks, poster pinning, raised voices, gossip drenching, public singing/embarassment, cell discussions, wolf chasing, so on and so forth. bla bla bla.

Good memories. Good lessons. But then, nothing mattered. Not in the sense that we imagine it anyway. God was there, and that was all I cared for.

And that was sublime.

It'll just be photographs to others, and that's what it should be. But there it was, while I was taking pictures, God taught me one last lesson for my time in CF:


That He is undeniably real, in every possible circumstance.
Forever.
And ever.
Whether I feel like it or not.


And that's my series finale.

Basil Poledouris dies

Basil Poledouris was one of the finer composers of his era. Never really caught my attention, but I think he caught my brother's. My brother has on occasion, ranted about how Cherry 2000 is really a stupid show but the music at the end credits is really good.

And he also owns the Conan the Barbarian cd.

I think mostly I remember the Robocop theme. Deng deng deng deng DENG deng deng deng DENNGGGGGG. Something like that.

Other notable soundtracks - The Touch, Starship Troopers, The Hunt for Red October

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Here's to the man.

The Benjamin Party

Last night, me jx girltmy originalsarah kerryann shazzy had dinner at this place in hartamas to celebrate benji's birthday so we all got there around dinner time and we ate and we ate and we ate some more then we had a round of drinks then some of us ordered really scandalous drinks and then just when we were about to call it a night girltmy showed up in her really pretty dress and showed us -never mind- and then she and ben ordered yet another round of drinks and jx ordered fried squids which we ate up very quickly by then it was 12 already we spent the whole night talking it was good catching up with good friends it wasn't boring at all it's not often we get to sit together and make every laugh for no particular reason the only sad part was there were large chunks of time devoted to discussions about jobs and oh my goodness wedding plans (of sorts) for some of the more fortunate ones among us after that I dropped kerryann home and me and jx took a wrong turn and ended up going back to subang using the scariest i'm sure it's haunted streetlight deprived road through the old airport before she finally arrived home and puked her squid it's funny cos i thought people vomit over alcohol overdose but no she ate too much fried squid oh well after that i went to bed and that was my night all gone it was time well spent any time spent with good friends is time well spent here's a picture we took without girltmy of course cos she was busy getting drunk elsewhere.

Lov DVD - This is what I call a personal milestone :P

So anyway, I sat down in Cheesy Studios and made some last min changes.

1. I removed Robert Etoll's lovely music that I pirated and replaced it with Eddie G's music from a CD he gave me recently. Used with permission of course. He said he doesn't mind piracy as long as he's credited, so I"m pirating it. I generally try to exploit.

2. I decided to keep the Neil Sekada song "Puppy Love" in the movie for a while more, until I get into trouble for it, that is, before I replace it with something else. Anyone with mushy old fashion love songs that I can pirate for free in the most legal fashion?

3. Cleaned up the sound for the last time. I think it's the best that I can manage for now. It's not perfect, but it'll pass.

4. Before exporting it, I deleted, and undid, and deleted, and undid, the line "Inspired by True Events" about 5 times before finally deciding that it shall stay. Just so I can tease people with it.

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Now that the film is in it's final (99%/Just awaiting confirmation on something else)

I burnt Lov on DVD! I burnt a couple of copies. Took me forever to do so. I only did it cos I'm sending off somewhere. Hee hee. Here's how it looks like





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Ok I gila over nothing.

Not available for order yet though. Too lazy to burn DVDs.

So fun so fun. Can't wait to make next short film.

Szen's Masterpiece

Szen is my PDA.

She remembers my assignment deadlines, tells me what to study, puts notes in front of my face, and wakes me up from my sleep.

She's a bimbo. With muscles.

Here's our most recent conversation.

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Ventures and Plans

Since I have nothing cheeky to write about, and since there is no one in particular I want to insult, and since I am currently in a phase where I feel like I don't want to be perasan anymore (hopefully a short one, cos I love being perasan), and since I'm totally immersed in the writing of my thesis (which is still untitled to date. I have tried naming it many different things, from Digital Films and Cyborg Spirituality, The Cyborg's Religion, Digital Film and the Contemporary Cyborg, Digital Film, Post-Modernism, Spirituality, and most recently, Cyborg Spirituality as Represented in 21st Century Digital Films) and have little time for movies, which is sad, and a few bla bla things here and there. I'll just rant.

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I'm trying to write a mini-series of stories. I've been trying for the past few months. I thought that my writing plague only affects my academic essays, but no, it affects my imaginary world as well.

Anyway, it's about a girl with a key that can open anything that it is meant to open. Something like that. The story revolves around her and three eternal entities, known as the '(have yet to decide. I initially named them the Earthshakers but decided that I can't help but associate it with the stupid Tauren/Earthshaker from Warcraft 3:DoTa)' who have a function of destroying things when the gods so pleases to. Or something like that.

I think to date I've written like 2 and a half parts. I have a rough framework, and it'll come up to be about 12-15 parts, maybe?

And yes, it's more readable than the 9 part The Fairy Tales thingy I wrote before.

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Call me when you're sober.

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I want to shoot a movie about shadows. A movie about love. The lead actress (and a supporting actor) gets to act by a seaside. The lead actor gets to act in a few different places. The shadow characters get to act in a made-up studio which I haven't decided how to construct yet.

It's very possibly a multi-part story again, like Lov. I find that I quite like telling many separate stories as compared to telling just one. It's like making 4 or 5 short films within a longer short film, which means I get to try different things.

It's going to be my favorite love story.

No time stopping line in it. Promise.

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And no, for those are wondering, I'm not going to turn the story of Match and Stick from Lov into a film on its own. This if for 2 reasons.

1) I plagarized the idea right out of Tim Burton's book, The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and Other Stories. You can call it a tribute to one of my favorite directors. And though I sometimes like plagarizing, (because I think plagaziring sometimes really is 'genuine inspiration', and helps one learn something. I learnt a lot making Captivation because I tried to make it like Tony Scott's Agent Orange. I learnt more about editing/cinematography in this picture more than any other I've done because I was trying to be Tony Scott), Match and Stick isn't genuine inspiration for me. It's just exploiting a good idea.

2) That little story is of a personal matter. There are two stories in Lov that literally is 'inspired by true events'. No wait, all the stories are inspired by true events. Just that there are two that I drew from my own experiences. The story of Match and Stick is one of them.

Ok make it three reasons,

3) I think shuyi won't agree to narrate anything again after the embarrassment she suffered voicing the narration (and willingly doing her hyena-like laughter) for Lov

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I want to make a James Bond vs Mission Impossible short film. Not spoof. Genuine kick butt intel gathering movie. I'd call it "MI:007"

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Yes this is a rant. A rather narcissistic one :)

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Current Minesweeper Flags score:

GIRL TMY - 27
BOY TMY - 27

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I think Nikolay Davydenko should have some sponsors. His win record is second only to Roger Federer. Give that guy a break.

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They

say
when
you meet
the
love
of your life
time
stops
and that's true