It had been a fruitful and eventful week. Maybe it's my age craving in, I decided to stay home today (OK, it's Sat) after some nights out. I went for 2 movies these week. 1st of all, it's The Island on Wed and then it's 7 swords yesterday.
OK, The Island. Hm...... not really a fans of Mr. Bay due to his over-the-top plot and bombing-blasting scenes in his movie.... (yeah... Armageddon n etc???) but surprisingly, I think the movie starts of intellectually hahaha.... Yeah, it's kinda boring especially if you're not really interesting on the premise of the movie, clone. And Mr. Bay tried to spend the 1st half explaining to audience on the cloning thingy with some nice eerie scenes of the cloning process and also poking fun on the "perfect" lifestyle of McGregor and Johannson. But suddenly the pace change altogether whereby Mr. Bay back to his usual style and blast it all!!!! I guess he's having fun at tat but hey, he's still Mr. Bay ok? The actors need not be too meaty in their acting as what you expect from action movie? However, Steve Buscemi is his usual self stealing the scene with his minor 10-15 minutes appearance. McGregor get to exercise his comic muscle in his portrayal of 2 Ewan. British accent is as elegant as usual.
And 7 swords. Lots of my friends brought up a valid topic. Who you wanna watch when you watch this? I mean some go for Mr. Cruise in War of the World, etc.... but in 7 swords??? The bygone era Leon??? S even said he spoilt the movie. But I guess there're still Charlie Yeung and Donnie Yen. Emily n Sophia said go for Mr. Tsui Hark hahhahaha..... The movie itself is OK. I think it's always a big problem when you want to adapt the martial arts novel into a movie. It's a tough job given the time frame you have the most is 2.5 hrs... Yeah... 7 swords is 2.5 hrs though you still felt that it's not well-utilised as there're lots of loopholes etc - loopholes or not, it's hard to say sometimes as HK movies tend to leave sth for the sequel, tat's another story. To add salt to the wound, there're 7 main characters with their respective swords, not including the baddies! Somemore there's a subplot with characters of the Kung Fu village as well. Too short a time in fact. We made a mistake of watching the movie at 10.50pm which spanned till 1.20pm!!!! And out of 10 of us, 4 slept someway in the movie! Leon is forgettable in the movie. However I admire him for taking the roles coz obviously he's not the main lead. Charlie had even more roles than him. And in the making I saw just now, he's #3. The Korean actress (forgot her name.... Kim sth) is actually taking too much time of the movie. She took lots of airtime actually. No complaints of her actually but more to Tsui's script. Donnie comes off as the main fighting star, esp when compared to Leon n other non-KungFu-esque actors. At times, I felt the 7s are not being given much airtime, as well as their respective swords!!! And to give the movie title as 7 swords!!!! Ini aku memang tak paham. Aft the movie, I only remember the shape of Donnie's, Charlies, Leon's and Duncan's sword but only Leon's sword's name. I think this is a failure. It's like ice lemon tea without lemon or tea! Another mistake is a miscast! How in the world Mr. Tsui can think of getting Michael Wong Man Dak to play the Qing Dynasty King????????? The moment he blurted his dialogue kills off the character already. Mr. Tsui, this is another mistake after your "The Legend of Xu". But I felt it's watchable.

A weeks' rants

Wow.... I was overwhelmed by last week. Having just came back from strenuous mid-year meeting, I was stressed out and pressurized. Gotta get some pressure relief valve to vent it out. Yeah.. it's normal as being in the sales line, target is sth that keep you moving and at the same time, keep pressing you to the maximum. Hard to say but what to do? It's your job, take it or leave it!
The whole last week was very much interesting, having the UMNO annual assembly, the AP thingy and the whole MCA and Gerakan annual meeting was overshadowed by UMNO proceedings. Being the biggest party of the nation, it's not unusual that the whole media attention was diverted to it. Being the first changeover of the meeting with Pak Lah as the penghulu and without the ever outspoken Mahathir... it's kinda refreshing. What I would like to say is that racial remarks were everywhere during this whole eventful week. I was never a fan of Lim Keng Yaik but I kinda salute him for daring to comment and actually "suggest" that we should analyze and review why our Malay brothers still unable to achieve the 30% target as per the NEP wanted like wat, 34 years ago??? Well, personally I would say Dr. Lim's suggestion seems to be logical to me. When something's can't be achieved, we must review and analyze before embarking on a plan to rectify them. Small people like me, for example, will review my performance and plan when I can't achieve the target for my mid-year sales figure. But sad enough, Dr. Lim's remark was being marked as racist by one of the Menteri Besar. Wow.... racist??? A mere suggestion is racist? I just don't understand, we heard more severe remarks by our UMNO Youth friends and we never brand that as racist. Memang membimbangkan. Then Dr. Lim's remark was being "asam-jeruk"kan till I saw a paper showed Dr. Lim's comment as "it can't go on and on". Well... I'm asking the same question. When? Dr. Lim's added some other interesting suggestion.... asking our brothers to compete with other global players and not focusing the other races.... Hahaha.... muhibah lah kononnya!!! Another interesting facts about muhibahness as we like it. Go and pay attention to the latest ad on our merdeka day by RTM. Small kids were featured in the whole ad but if you notice and scrutinize carefully, some of the races are not represented. Haha....... muhibahlah kononnya. But I can't help but wonder since last time, it's always politically correct and feature ALL the major races in any national-celebration ads. Yeah... maybe we are racist after all!!!! If we remember Yasmin Ahmad's ad on the Budi Bahasa campaign was being criticised as racist and not protraying the truth coz the actor who's obviously without budi bahasa is our brother's race. So, how should it be done? Put other races' as the bad guy then it'll not be racist????? Gosh.... I dunno what's the logic of these of group people. I bet they're those who climbed up the wall and gate of Selangor Chinese Chamber's premise few years back after the Dong Jiao Zhong stating their stand on the Chinese education policy.
Then another is AP vs Proton. I read with full interest on Kak Dah's (supposed to be nama glamour given by her Youth brothers) attempt to rest down the critics that condemned her openly in the meeting, It was reported that she was booed and jeered when she mentioned at one time the quality of Proton cars. And the crowd shouted out "Hidup Proton"???? Gosh.... I'm wondering are those who shouted own a Proton car??? If it's not the cheapest car in the market (just comparing price without thinking about the quality and reliability), I wonder how many of us will buy it. Minta maaf???? Haha..... Dr. Shahrir Samad mentioned one interesting facts regarding our Kak Dah and Tun's relationship. "She was his favourite minister and now they are quarelling. It marks the end of something but don't ask me what" Isn't this better than the paparazzi surrounding the Taiwanese star, Lin Zhi Ling????
Then what else??? Yea... the MCA election was like peanut compared to the big hoo-ha of UMNO assembly. What to do? Like the HKies says...... "admit your fate" lah! De-peg of RM. Finally. Let's see what're the effect...... Pak Lah say kita boleh mah
On lighter note, had a fun night karaoke with ex-classmated. We managed to get 10 of them to gather and sing our heart out. It's always fun to get together esp when we're going to have our reunion next CNY....
I'm still reading The Lexus and The Olive Tree. 2 more new books is coming, thanks to Sophia who supplied them to me. I read the Haruki Murukami's Norwegian Wood before and I think now it's better timing to read it as I was too young at that time. Another one is a book on Wong Kar Wai's film, should be nice and informative as I love his movie.
Yeah.... watched divergence by Aaron Kwok, Daniel Wu and Ekin Cheng. Memorable "trying-too-hard" performance from Aaron. Female characters are just "flower vase" as in the films of the Mou-Gan-Dou-esque theme. But Ning Jing is shining; not only her bald head look but her Beijing-qiang-esque Mandarin is attractive. Haha..... Wat else to ask for??? A Sunday afternoon entertainment. No complaint.
Tomorrow gonna watch The Island. Starred by Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johannson, two bankable actor-ish type of artisan, it was mixed-reviewed as some says it's good but some says mediocre. Yeah...another Michael Bay's flick, for me, it's just for the sake of Ewan and Scarlett.
Currently listening to Mariah Carey's "We Belong Together" and Buble's latest album. Maybe I haven't listen to Carey's song these latest few years, it sounded OK lah. Buble ah...... OK and I love his "Home". It generated some mixed feeling in me, a lonely soul who had been staying out for more than 10 years!!!!

Love Thy Neighbour

Yeah.... the Desperate Housewives series is really captivating and it made me think do we really know our neighbour well enough? Yeah.... now I'm staying in apartment so it's literally no need and less chances of bumping into your neighbours at all.... It came as a shock to me as I found out that my neighbour had move out temporarily few months ago!!! Yeah... I can blame it to my neverending outstation trip but today, I happen to see their door opened... looked like they have some trouble with the floor tiles. They were getting off from the floor and hence, they move out temporarily to get it done. So, I have to endure endless hours of knocking from now.....

OK, I admit I'm a boring person. My idea of Saturday? Meeting up with friends and have a good chat over coffee; browsing bookstores and CD stores and that's all. Boring right? Of course if I'm not out, I'll stay in my house doing the ever-tiring housekeeping such as sweeping and mopping the floor. I'm sick of these actually but what else can I do? Enrol the swimming lesson, go to gym to buff up, go and help out in the Kiwanis Down Syndrome Centre. OK, I got it, there's lots to do.
Went to meet an old friend with some of his colleagues from WM. He was quite persistent in meeting us up and I accepted it. Well, what can I say? It's not easy to meet up with some strangers and hope to get the "clicked" feeling. To be frank, I'm not really looking for this kinda feeling, just open up myself and getting to know new friends. I need to enlarge my circle of friends.
Gonna finish some of my piled up reports and proposals. Next week is my training in KL and this time around, lots need to be done and it needed to be done fast and good

Yup, London blast. Literally! Just fresh from the great joy and celebration mood of successfully gaining the organizing right for Olympic 2012, several explosions occurred in the underground tube and dampened the joyous mood to the zero ground. What can I say? The world had gone wrong, like what SA said. Watching the news coverage and the follow-up, I had some feeling that some of the British is not totally shocked like what v saw in 911 few yrs back. The level and intensity of the shocking faces is definitely toned down comparatively. To certain extend, I believe the British in some way is kinda expecting something like this to happen, but the timing is totally unexpected, which is just after a great celebration moment. Given Blair is the big supporter of the Iraq war, UK is one of the last countries where the extremists haven't really launch any revenge as others such as Paris, Madrid etc had already been "revenged" in some way or other. Just hope that things will change.Peace still rules.

Hitch Hiking Anyone?

driving 5.5 hrs hilly one-lane road is no easy feat so i'm extremely tired. on the way passing the Mt. Kinabalu, i saw a minah salleh waiting for bus and being a friendly sabahan, i offer her a ride. haha....
having enjoyed the hospitality of my hosts during my trip in Italy, I made a promise to do so here in Malaysia and promoting the whole idea of it. she asked me do i charge anything and jokingly asked whether is it safe or not. yea.... i looked too safe and she went in my car without further questions. she turns out to be a friendly tourist as well. so v chatted all the way from the kinabalu park till i dropped her at the tourist information centre.
her name is jane and she's from sydney. working in spore on a boat. no questions asked further on that but she told me the boat traveled around the world so i guess it must be some kind of cruise maybe smaller in size or private owned. she was in China for 3 wks before coming to Borneo, and she climbed the mountain. went to Kinabatangan River and stayed there and Sepilok as well. haha.... it's not a surprise if many sabahan never did wat she did in 1wk. an avid traveller, she and her bf have the priviledge to travel as they both on that boat. very chatty and she's gonna take off back to spore tomorrow so she'll go to the Pulau's in the morning. wish her luck and enjoy!
Ciao Jane!

SICK

OK, I'm not asking for sympathy but I am SICK. Hopefully I will recover soon, gotta go back to KK soon and I believe I'll be able to recover sooner. Shit! Tonnes of things piling up!
Ciao!

Books and Signal

OK, it's not that I dun like books, in fact I'm sort of like a book worm though I kinda abandon this liking for books after I started working a few years back. But lately I bought lots of books, at least that's a lot to my standard as I tend to borrow from either library or my endless resource of well-read friends. Lots to what extend you may ask, 5 in 2 months? Haha... it's like compensation to the lack of it the few years back, fueled up by the thought of tax exemption up to RM700. Haha..... si kui me comes in the picture again. I bought mostly chinese books with one exception, a book by Thomas Friedman called The Lexus and The Olive Oil. Evidently, he's a good author and his pieces touches on his feeling as a journalist and facts about globalisation. Good book for those who reads the world news and not phobic about political scenarios around the world (for those who even ignorant to our own country's political scenario, forget abt this, ok, no offense). Bought 2 bookagazine hahaha.... (i donned this word myself (hybrid of book and magazine). It's actually published by Taiwanese publisher under the series of Net and Books. Each copy will emphasize on different topics and the entries and articles are very nicely packaged with illustration and you will find very ecletic choice of correspondence submitting their opinions on the specified topic each issue. The two copies I bought was on Greece and Music. I am always fascinated by the Greek mythology since I was small and I remember I used to have a pen-pal from Greece but we lost contact these days. I was always dumb-strucked by the breathtaking sceneries of the blue-Santorini sky and sea decorated by its cluster of nicely built and painted houses scattered around the cliff of the islands of Greece. I always wish to remember each specific Greek mythological figure i.e. Zeus, Athena etc... but being older each day, my memory turned me down in such a speedy rate hence having a book is way much easier. OK, my next dream destination is Greece, actually it was always my dream destination but somehow got detoured for my own trip after my UK training, due to mostly economical and logistic reason. The next volume is on music and it covers quite a complete range of music and entries of ppl like Lin Qiang (folk rock singer turned electronica-punk singer from Taiwan), Luo Da You and Chui Jian (godfather of Taiwan and China rock scene respectively) plus an entry by Lei Guang Xia surely made it a sure-buy. Haven't read yet. Actually I want to buy the volume called "Alone"/"Yi Ge Ren". Wouldn't it be more appropriate??? Haha.... gonna read the book and match it with my own life now and I think the similarity will be at least 80%. MC, one of my friend mentioned that it will be more depressing to read this kind of book but who cares??? We can't be any less depressed by not reading that right? Haha... Saw another book in Popular by this Japanese gal, I think called "Five Years of Living Alone" (sth like tat lah). It's again the illustration book which caught the hit bug lately (or maybe since few years ago) after the success of Jimmy Liew (known fondly as Ji Mi) about life of living alone. Well... come to think of it, I can actually start to write something like tat. However, my drawing sucks so I may opt to use image/photo instead. 4th book is an illustration book by Miao Ru, famous for her Exchange Diaries series. The title is My Life in Seattle, of course about her life in Seattle after moving there with her Norwegian husband. Seattle.... the Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan classic comes in mind but after n-times of watching the reruns which was repeated-shamelessly in our local TV stations, it lost the ummpphh.... Only my fascination with the soundtrack stays as it was a good compilation of nice jazzy tunes, not to forget it did revive the Nat King Cole's classic, When I Fall in Love. Nice and light, the book by Miao Ru. The 5th book and the latest is the one on Stephen Chow. Yup, u read it right! The book actually opened my eyes on Stephen Chow's film though I kinda develop likings for his recent film esp "Eat God". Very impressive fanbase and big names submitted their entries to this book as well, e.g. Wakin Chow, Nan Fang Sth (dunno how to pronounce but he's a very famous social commentator), Tsang Bao Yi and Stephanie Sun the singer, famous film critic Men Tin Siong and his amazing fans. Some interesting facts here, Yu Fa, the famous ugly sidekick of his films, fondly remembered with "her" nose-picking (digging more aprtly) antics is actually Stephen's classmate!!!

sig·nal ( P ) Pronunciation Key (sgnl)n.
An indicator, such as a gesture or colored light, that serves as a means of communication. See Synonyms at gesture.

The above definition was taken from dictionary.com and I guess it must be sent to millions of drivers in Malaysia as they don't know what's the meaning of it and how the little device in our cars which normally on the right hand side of the steering (sometimes left side e.g. Proton Waja) can perform the function as SIGNAL!!!!!!!!! Imagine you are waiting at the junction, trying to get into the main road... not any main road but seriously busy main road with continuous stream of cars. You are there, patiently waiting for a chance to move thinking that if there's any car which want to turn into ur junction, that's ur chance to end ur patience-testing wait. But those drivers are just too ignorant abt that little device in their car called SIGNAL, just drive elegantly into the junction without considering the feeling of the other party who may have been waiting for ages!!!!!! Seriously, the traffic police should be stationed at those strategic junction and send the summons to those drivers who failed to give SIGNAL!!!!!! It can cause a major jam with cars queueing endlessly trying to get out to the main road and I'm sure the consequences such as time wasted, fuel wasted, temper provoked, foul words and swearing shouted are enough to justify the station of traffic police. Come on, friend!!!! Do give signal when you want to turn into any direction if it's not your current direction!

Initial D

OK, 1st of all, I have to admit I never read the original comic series. And I never watch Fast and Furious. Hence, I have nothing to compare with regarding this movie. What can I say? As usual anthony wong is his usual self. I think it's always assuring to have him as one of the cast in a movie. He can portray anything, if it's not the best, it's enough to outshine others or "enough homework". Again, Chapman is his usual comical self, providing most of the comic relief of the movie. However, sometimes it's a bit too much, e.g. the scene where he vomit after being a passenger of Jay's driving... the 2nd and 3rd time vomitting action is just overdoing it. No comment about Jay's acting but I felt that he should leave the acting to those who knows better and concentrate on his portrayal of the "selamba" character. The later scene whereby he cried gosh.... he just can't do it! And that scene is not short man!!! Tears and all??? After that scene I think it's better Jay continue to sing instead. And what happen to the only female cast? I believe there're more cutie Japanese gals around. Oh.... mayb it's me. I'm getting old now. Gotta blend in to the younger crowd huh? Speak or rather blurt out words unclearly you want to speak like Jay or maybe speak like Edison in monotonous tone..... Abt Edison, I prefer Shawn indeed. Like his goatee and moustache, suits him.
However, the way the movie is shot is interesting. I dun know how the car racing scene fared compared to Hollywood's Fast and Furiuos but I quite like it. I dunno whether I'm oversensitive or watever.... but I noticed some elements of Mou Gan Dou in the movie... notably the 1st racing scene between Chapman and Shawn. The buddha statue reminds me of the same in the 1st installment of the Mou Gan Dou trilogy.
Though the movie is entertaining but I think it actually highlighted the problems faced by the HK film industry. It's still those few others around, is there any other actors in HK??? No wonder they have to find someone in Taiwan. Not to say Jay is the right choice but he's really a crowd puller. Good marketing ploy here.