Tuesday, January 30, 2007

I clicked

I clicked on the the Top25mostplayed on my Itunes for the first time today. Apart from my soundtracks, the most played songs for the year 2006 are

1. Better Days - Goo Goo
2. Call Me When You're Sober - Evanesc
3. Patience - TT (don't. you. dare. say. anything.)
4. We Are One Tonite - Switchfot
5. The Saints r Comin - U2/Greenday
6. Beautiful One - Jeremy Cam
7. I'm Still Here - John Rznik
8. Nothing's Gonna Stand in Our Way - Spectre General
9. Lithium - Evanescence

Monday, January 29, 2007

Wish Come True

Ben/Mal: What do you have planned for Valentine's day?

Sarah Jane: a getaway! drive to langkawi! enjoy the sunset! feel the hair! in the wind... er.

Everyone: You mean feel the wind in your hair.

*


Keep it up, girl.


it is a problem.

Sunday, January 28, 2007

Wasted Away

Personally, I think this blog has been terribly boring for the past few months. Then I thought back to the days when this blog was mildly entertaining, even to myself. And realize that I miss something.

I miss Ah Lien's stupidity. Not that she's stupid. But she has more Freudian slips than most people I know. There was once when we were filming The Door, when instead of saying, "I just told the whole world I'm in love with Ah Beng" said "I just told the whole world I'm in love with Meng Yoe".

Sorry.
But true.

Oh you know what, let me just post one of her emails here. Last month, when I sent out invitations to my classmates to come by my place to eat sushi, she replied quickly, saying:

"I want to make sushi! And I want to make sushi too :)
Yay. Let me know when."

Generation Earth

And The Spaceship floated through space. The scientists and politicians in power before the world ended rushed the completion of this huge survival spacecraft for six thousand people chosen to keep humankind alive should they ever find another planet to live on again.

Because of terrorist threats, parties in charge hurried the launch of the ship, and hastily named the ship The Spaceship.

The Spaceship travelled through the vast oceans of space. Past the nebulas and nebulaes and the quasars and quasimodos and the milky ways and chocolate roads for eons and eons. Time had lost all meaning for the shipmates. 146 generations of peoples lived and died in The Spaceship.

Until one day, they arrived on this new planet.

They found ancient ruins, pictures of beings that looked like them but dressed weirdly and had more hair than they've ever been allowed to keep. It was a planet of trees, oceans, and wild animals. Some ancient structures remained intact.

The people from The Spaceship settled on that new planet, which they affectionately called planet Earth, after the memory of the home of their ancestors.

It took the people three years, seven months, and ninety two days to realize (after discovering very ancient remains of 'alien' design of vehicles that quite resembles their spaceship, accessing records of primitive beings being directly related to the first generation of The Spaceship members, and a few other scary revelations) that The Spaceship had in fact, circled the entire universe, the entire space desert (or jungle, depending on your fancy), to return to the planet they first left.

And the battles began again. Egos clashing and brawns bashing.

Nine thousand years after Earth's second life, another spaceship, called The Rocket, was sent out into outer space on the brink of a global death. This ship was designed very carefully to punch through the borders of the universe, hopefully to another dimension, to live again.

The Spaceship was a search for a new Earth, a new home.

The Rocket was an abandonment of Earth, and no one could care less if it found a new home.

*

Citizens of The Rocket lasted 379 generations before the last surviving male killed the last surviving female by cracking her neck with his bare fists. He then locked himself in the self reproducing nuclear generator and committed a slow suicide.

The ship never died. And 1056255902784204 Earth years later, penetrated the soft borders of the universe, and crashed into a sandy new world, of which we have no knowledge of.

Except that it's sandy. Cos I said so.

Because I am The Rocket.

*

End.

Children of Men



If anything, watch this film for an impressive finale.

If the oscar for visual effects is rated based on the overall effectiveness in contributing to the visual context of a film, then weirdly enough, this movie would get my vote. I hardly noticed any CGI, and constantly asked myself, "hey this bit here has to be CGI, but hmm it doesn't look so."

8/10


Oh, the movie's about a not too futuristic Earth. 2027 or something like that. All the women have become infertile and the world is dying a slow death. The world is a chaotic place with immigrants running from place to place. Terrorists from outside and within fight with government troops day and night and evenings and afternoons.

Then we have Clive Owen, and a pregnant girl.

What to do?

Ta da.

TagS

Stole this from Sizzling's blog.
Sizzling's a guy's nickname k.

3 hobbies:

(a) Insulting people to show my love
(b)
Watching a good movie.
(c) Twirling my hair (please. Kidding.)


3 things on my "TO DO" list:

(a) Sing a song to you.
(b) Insult you.
(c) Twirl my hair.

3 unique traits:

(a) I can tolerate a female shopping for a few hours. I think.
(b) You're my friend. that's unique.
(c) I twirl my hair.


3 favourite drinks:

(a) Coffee
(b) Coffee
(c) Coffee


3 passions:


(a) Insulting you.
(b) Singing to you.
(c) Twirling my hair.


3 awesome movies:
I'll ignore Star Wars for this and randomly pick three shows in my head.

(a) The Usual Suspects
(b) Howl's Moving Castle
(c) Closer


3 good bands:

(a) 98degrees
(b) NSync
(c) BackstreetBoys

Okay kidding.

(a) u2
(b) googoodolls
(c) hijauday


3 things I hate:

(a) the smell of marzipan
(b) the taste of marzipan
(c) not twirling my hair

Saturday, January 27, 2007

Do Not Respond to Time Stopping Events

My friend made this comment the other day about my favorite line. She said that she doesn't understand why people still leave comments when I post that line (which actually is a fair point, it does generate more comments than everything else, which generates almost none). She noted that my friends should be immune/bored/used to me saying it for many years now, and she also wonders what's there left to say about that line after so many years??

So.

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

Friday, January 26, 2007

Propaganda Happens in the Free World Too

I read sports news.
Usually, I read sporting news in the following order

Local sports news (like Malaysia vs Singapore and the occasional badminton thing) from the newspapers...

Then
I log on to Yahoo!
then I read the updates on
NBA
Football
Tennis

For those of you who watch tennis, you'd know the Aussie Open is happening. A day ago, Swiss World No.1 Roger Federer beat the stuffing out of American Andy Roddick. The Yahoo headline read

Roddick Stunned

Really. What's there to be stunned about. Going in to the match it was either gonna be Federer scraping a win, or Federer totally dominating Roddick's ass like he's playing a school girl. It turned out to be the latter.

I'm stunned that the american run sports site described Roddick's loss as "STUNNED"

It's like saying Singapore losing to Malaysia in a football match is a stunning loss. I mean get a grip. We trounce Singaporeans like we eat nasi lemak. Happily and easily.


no words necessary.

Stardust Coming Soon



Matthew Vaughn's Stardust
based on the book/comic by Neil Gaiman

Coming soon to theatres near you.

If you had to choose one movie to watch, watch Stardust.
Disregard Transformers, Shrek 3, 300, TMNT, F4, Pirates 3 if you must.

*

A little anticipation

It's weird, but no composer has been named for this film yet. And I'm wondering who they'll hire for this fantasy romance epic of gargantuan and monumental proportions.

Personally, for some reason, the name I am wishing for is Dario Marianelli.

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

The Highs and Lows and some Middles and Nowheres

So the Academy Award nominations are out, so let me say this. I'm proud to say that one very important film got a nomination for Best Visual Effects:


Alongside Pirates of the Caribbean 2 and Poseidon. Every year, I get 2 out of 3 right for this category. The one I missed was X-Men 3. But Poseidon? Even V for Vendetta had better visuals.

*



and Kate Winslet nails her 5th nomination at age 32. Lifetime achievement award in sight.

*

It's a sad year for the best original score ca, with no Hans Zimmer or John Williams to root for. Instead, we get Gustavo Santaolalalalolipop, Alexandre Desplat, Thomas Newman (save me), Javier Navarrette (who?) and Phillip Glass. I've not seen any of the 5 films in this category (yet) so I'll go with Phillip Glass for the win.

*

It's the year of the Mexicanos with Alejandro Gonzalez Innarritu's Babel, Guillermo Del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth, and Alfonso Cuaron's Children of Men racking up a total of 16 nominations.

*

How in the world did Jack Nicholson not get in for his psychotic ganglord role in The Departed? Mark Wahlberg did though, and that's a good touch.

*

So far, that's all I care about.

*

Recently watched:

Budak-budak Terbang (Flyboys) - Er. Some nice planes. The perfect computer game.

The Black Dahlia - Er. Save me.

Casshern - Er.

I must make a note that this particular episode "2162 votes" from The West Wing season 6 is perhaps one of the most entertaining half hour of television I've ever seen.

And Sizzling owes me Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and some episodes from Heroes.

Recently read:

Jarhead - It's actually a fun read. Read if you can tolerate a strong dose of er... vulgarity.

5 People You Meet in Heaven - The cheese. Pleasant. But the cheese. Milked straight from the cow.

Superman: For Tomorrow - Save me.

And a lot of random things.

*

Considering - A lot of things.

Monday, January 22, 2007

Asteroid field cleared.

Ship status (remaining percentage indicated)

Deflector Shields - 10%
Sanity - 16%
Hull - 100%
Weapons system - 100%
Hyperspace fuel - 5%

Overall, God has been good.

Sunday, January 21, 2007

C-3PO: Sir, the possibility of successfully navigating an asteroid field is approximately 3,720 to 1.
Han Solo: Never tell me the odds.

Thursday, January 18, 2007

Very Soon



Wednesday, January 17, 2007

coming soon to computers near you.
They say when you meet the love of your life, time stops, and that's true!

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

A Passing Thought about Kate Winslet

Okay, you know how they pick the winner of the Honorary Oscar every year? It's usually an old dude or duddette who has been nominated many many times in the past but have never won, so they get an Honorary one in their old age, before they die, so they are you know, honoured with at least one win in their life, for their overall achievement.

Recent winners include Peter O' Toole, who had 7 other nominations in his life before the Academy got fed up and gave it to him at age 71. Then you have Robert Altman receiving it last year, having being nominated 5 times before. He died within the same year. This year's receipient is Ennio Morricone, a composer nominated 5 times before, now age 78.

Okay, I'll predict one of the recepient for this award. Maybe 40 years from now. Kate Winslet's gonna receive the Honorary Oscar. At age 31 she already has 4 Oscar nominations (and another possible one this year) with ZERO wins. She's done it at such a young age.


Kate in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Thing about her is, I like her. I generally enjoy her acting. I really liked her in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and absolutely was blown away by her role in The Life of David Gale, and she was the only good thing about Finding Neverland, and recently I watched All The King's Men, which she did fairly well in (and no, Titanic stinks. So let's not talk about that one) But put her over the top and actually win something? Not sure if it'll happen. Possibly she'll have a 9 or 10 winless record before being honoured. Haha.

Near future winner? Martin Scorsese. But he might win the real thing next month, so hold your breath.

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

More than Meets the Eye

On 7.4.7

















Superman Returns




































No, I mean, Autobots, transform and roll out!
(trust me, now that I'm all grown up, I feel stupid saying that line. Autobots, transform and roll out, or Decepticons, retreeeeaaaaattt!!! But that being said, I hope those lines appear in the film.)







Decepticons, retreeeeaaatttt!!!!

Tuesday, January 09, 2007

"Good writers borrow from other writers. Great writers steal from them outright."
- Sam Seaborn, The West Wing - episode "20 Hours in L.A."

Monday, January 08, 2007

When Songs Don't Jive

Here's a post about songs. Often we associate certain songs with certain events, or certain seasons. Theme songs are supposed to represent something in some way. Like how World Cup winners sing that Queen song We Are The Champions, or how when we think of the old Transformers cartoon we think of Stan Bush's You've Got the Touch (referring mostly to the specialness of Optimus' Prime), and how when we hear Aerosmith's I Don't Want to Miss a Thing we remember Armageddon. When U2 went on their charity tour, including Live8, they sang One as their campaign song to eradicate poverty.

Or how for some people sing certain songs to remember their love lives. I have this friend, Troy, who loves singing along with me Moulin Rouge's theme song, Come What May, because it reminds us of our respective love lives at the time, perhaps.

But sometimes songs remind us of things that makes no sense at all. I realized this when I heard Evanescence's Call Me When You're Sober for the 100th time today, and felt that there is something cyborgian, or robotic, about the music. It's rather sad because toward the end of my writing of my Honours I listened to two songs very very very frequently. Call Me When You're Sober, and I Don't Want to Miss a Thing. I've tried to uncover all sorts of subliminal reasons I listened to these two songs that much, but nope, no explanation.

When I hear U2's City of Blinding Lights, which mostly likely is about New York city and stuff, I think of a computer game, Championship Manager 4. I played the Italian league, English league, Spanish league, and Austrian league, but nothing about city of blinding lights.

When Wet Wet Wet's Love is all Around plays, I think of me playing chase chase with friends in standard 6. Nothing romantic about it.

Thubthumpin makes me think of me lying on the couch sleeping away while I was in form 2.

stuff like that.

Oh and when I hear Never Forget by Take That, I think of my half asleep state when travelling on highways. And imagine the monsters in the caves, or the creatures in the plantations.

*

Sidenotes:

I am currently terribly stuck with something I'm supposed to write for Easter. Abel is writing parts of it, and I wonder how he's holding up.

I'm also terribly stuck with finding a job.

And painfully terribly unable to think of something I want to film.

And slightly agitated that I have 4 separate stories, all half told, sit in a folder.

And blabberishly bothered about a number of things.

And wanting to read everything that's on my table now. But sleep overcomes me most of the time.

Save me.

Friday, January 05, 2007

Sushi Makan

So today I had some friends come over for makan. Most of them were classmates from days past. May Yee, Sarah Jane, Szen, and myself just recently finished our most dreaded Honours year in Monash. Mal just finished her Mistress degree in Aussie. The rest came from work. One from CF. Two from church. One from a burrow.

Earlier in the day Sarah Jane and Mal came over to help me make sushi. It was our first time. We started from scratch. With some help from my mom. We made sushi. We cut this and that, fried this and that, and rolled this and that.

Then we makaned. Here are some photos. Let me just mention that I missed taking pictures of two other guests, Grace and Meng Hong, who dropped by for a short while to eat stuff. Too bad Josh didn't come. And thanks Mal for the lovely dessert.


While waiting for Sarah Jane and Mal, I took some pics of my niece. Here's one.


hard work.


My niece is a brave little girl. She danced before my friends. I didn't take a picture today, so here's one from last week where she danced before my cousins. I bet you May Yee can't do a quarter of that.

In fact, I can prove it. Check this out -


Fail.


Ah. Been a while since I saw Benji.


Shu and Suan Mei. I didn't get a pic, but when Shu arrived, she didn't bother much with pleasantries and ate. and ate. and ate.


Then the traditional storytelling session began.


Most of the ladies arrived before Ben and Meng Hong, so my brother asked if I'm picking a wife. I said no, but that's not say that I'm not surrounded by lovely women. Here's Szen and Sarah Jane chatting (notice Ah Lien's weird smile. Like a wicked witch.)


Shu wasn't sure she could make it for the dinner, but when she heard I had the Darth Tater toy... No really. She said it herself. She came for this.


Eating food.


Group photo right before we decided to call it a night.

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Niece 730 days old

Last week my niece celebrated her 2nd birthday... here are some photos taken by my brother and me...


My brother bought Shieh Reine a box of Mr.Potatohead thingies, about a few days after my cell member Meng Hong bought me a Darth Tater Potatohead thingy.


With two potatoheads and a lot of accessories, my niece set out to construct an alien.


whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat??



Then we makan


whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?


Then my brother joined the fun and created Darth Elephant