Handicap

I am a handicap
I am unable to love
And therefore
I shall not be loved in return

Mirrors

I did not really have high expectations when I walked into the theater, to be honest. I figured this would just be another watch-and-forget movie. And I was right.

Mirrors is loosely based on a Korean horror movie in year 2003 - Into The Mirror. But except for the ending (and the mirrors of course), I can't find any resemblances. I would say both are equally bad.

Like any other conventional scary movies, the most important element to scare the viewers is... the sound effects. And yeah, I got scared, but it was not a creepy feeling, not the kind where after days of watching and you recall back the scenes you'd get goosebumps. And sadly, I don't remember the last horror film I saw that gave me this type of feeling and satisfaction.

There was a girl sitting next to me in the theater who was damn scared, kept hugging her boyfriend. This had disturbingly reminded me of a very bad experience I had when watching a ghost movie with a guy friend a very long time ago. So I made damn sure I don't repeat the same mistake with ZiLin, the guy I was watching this movie with. SukTeng, you know what I mean. And I'd like to assure you nothing dramatic happened.

And... Right, back to the movie. So there was blood, there were people dying horribly, there were ghosts suddenly popping up, there were mirrors, there were mysteries waiting to be solved and people to be saved... Up until 20 minutes before the movie ended, it was still acceptably frightening. But when a 60-year-old nun turned into a supposedly-possessed-by-demon-monster, it took me a great effort to choke back my laughter. I supposed the script just couldn't go on anymore but they simply had to put an end to the story. So this is where the monster conveniently came in. In a nutshell, if you have too much time to spend and too much money to waste, you are most welcome to watch Mirrors.

Wall-E

Wall-E stands for Waste Allocation Load Lifter - Earth Class. Their sole purpose of survival was to clear up the garbage left on earth so that the people can come back to Earth to live. The beginning of the movie was so sad. I just couldn't bear looking at Wall-E working alone on Earth collecting garbage. And the most pitiful is the part when he had to collect the second-hand spare parts from his fellow out-of-service Wall-E robots to replace his own. I find it quite unbelievable that he was able to develope human instincts from time to time. But this is an animation, so it's still acceptable.

It then started to become interesting following the introduction of the female robot, Eve (Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator), who came back to Earth to look for sign of life - plants. The first half of the movie revolved around the two robots - Wall-E who fell in love with Eve; and also the extremely aggressive Eve.

There was not a single conversation before the appearance of the people, as in the humans. But just like what KokChiang and ZiLin said, a good animation/cartoon does not need conversations, take the classical Woddy Wood Pecker, Pink Panther etc.

And Wall-E is sooooooo cute!


The movie emphasized on the sense of touch. The people in the future eventually forget about the importance of the sense of touch. Touching is so important it shows passion, love and care. Even robots need to be touched. My colleague said the holding hands part means it is a movie to watch with the guy who's after you. But I think that's just crap. It's a good movie no matter with whom you watch it.

Just like any other Pixar production, it is moving, funny, cute, and irrelevant, especially at the ending. But then again, it is an animation, so it is still accpetable. I'll refrain myself from revealing too much. You guys should go watch it yourselves. It's another one of Pixar production that you can't miss!

Untitled

Tears streaming down my cheeks
Ignoring the curious stares from other passengers
I wiped away my tears
Allowing sadness to overcome me
Darkness was taking over
Enveloping me
When I felt a sudden vibration from inside my handbag
Heard the sweetest tone in the world
I took out my handphone and read,
"Hey, what are you doing?"
I stopped crying
My fingers gotten busy
As the darkness quietly slipped away
And I felt better already

Sparrow

A Johnny To production - one of the best movie director/producer from Hong Kong. Thus before the movie Sparrow (watch the trailer here.) actually ended, I was very much confident that something good would eventually come out of it.

The film started by introducing Simon Yam, sewing his own pants (or something like that, couldn't tell whether he was sewing a button on his pants or actually sewing his pants), with a very cheerful-sounding music playing in the background. It simply sounded weird cause I expected a typical Hong Kong style good-guys-versus-bad-guys-chase. But the cheerful soundtrack and a happy Simon Yam just don't fit in.

Things finally gotten serious when the film moved on to Simon and his fellow colleagues' daily routine - having breakfast together and then "hoi gong" (start work)... picking-pockets. Up until this point the story plot is still understandable. But for the next 30 minutes or so, the director gave a very out-of-the-ordinary introduction to Kelly Lin, one of the main characters. Kelly crossed paths with the 4 pick-pockets (sparrows) intentionally, trying to... seduce them (seemed to me), maybe. This could be the longest 30 minutes of my life. The slow-motion and unexplainable scenes could definitely bore you to tears. Halfway through the movie, the true purpose of her encounters with them finally revealed, though Zi Lin already could guessed at the beginning and told me before this already.

I have to agree with Zi Lin that the storyline was too simple, without unexpected twists. And the action sequence, to my surprise, was very limited. I believe that the story itself is quite fresh, it just needs some spices, a little bit of furnishing here and there, and LESS artistic/slow-motion scenes (the slow motion parts are very much like Johnny To's style though). I think that it has a lot of space for improvement, and I mean A LOT.

I watched this movie with ShinYin. She had some very interesting comments on this movie too.

watch Korean, Japanese, Taiwanese, HK dramas online

I was randomly surfing the net when I came across this website that allows you to watch Korean, Japanese, Taiwanese and Hong Kong dramas and movies online. For those who do not like to download dramas and movies (like me), this would be a good site to go. Truly feeding your drama addiction, http://www.mysoju.com/ provides a long list of dramas/movies (mostly Korean and Japanese) for your viewing pleasure. I find it quite convenient as I do not like to use bitcomet. Although I noticed a few of "under repair" dramas and movies, but the list is long enough for me to look for dramas that I've never watch before.

I'm now watching 1 litre of tears. A heart-warming Japanese series that tells a true story of a 15-year-old girl who had an incurable disease called spinocerebellar ataxia; and how she cope with the chronic disease that slowly destroyed her nervous system, taking away her ability to walk, speak, move, and understand. As I write I'm currently on episode 7, there's four more to go and already my eyes are watering like nobody's business. I usually am not easy to cry when watching movies. Any healthy living human beings should watch this, it made you realize how lucky you are to be alive, to be able to do things that you do everyday.

Sony Ericsson 350i

What attracted me to buy this phone was the classic flip-open look and its special, out-of-the-ordinary design. It costs me RM680, came with the usual package - handsfree, USB cable, charger and a 512MB memory card. After using it for more than a week, I have to conclude that it is not worth its price.

The bad:

• The camera is just 1.3 megapixel and it doesn't have a video recorder.
• The keypad on the outside looks and feels rather fragile and needs to be carefully attended.
• Although I've never let it drop on the ground before (touch wood), I think that if it did, it would be damaged beyond repair. And the 1-year warranty doesn't cover this.
• When the lid closes, it automatically displays the walkman player. This feature could not be turned off. Very battery consuming, I would say.
• When the lid closes, normal phone operations (e.g. answering calls, accessing the camera, texting messages, modifying settings etc.) cannot be established. I find that a little inconvenient.

The good:

• Very good sound system.
• Nice, slim, compact design.
• Look cool when flipping open and close to answer calls.
• Very nice displays. (But I guess all Sony Ericsson phones have nice displays.)

Hmm... So far I can only think of these few good things about it. I believe (without any supporting proof though), that with the same price, it's possible to get a handphone with much better specifications. Hopefully I'd be able to discover more interesting features and advantages in this new model of Sony Ericsson's.

the world is no longer safe

At approximately 7:00 a.m. on a Tuesday morning, she was driving down to the Wangsa Maju LRT station to take the LRT to work. She parked her humble white Kancil at the side of the main road, took no notice of the dark figure lurking right in front of the stairs. She turned off the engine, the door lock clicked open. She took her time wearing her Hush Puppies working shoes, grabbing her bag, preparing to get down from the car. The next thing she saw was a dark-skinned figure, and a knife.
She screamed out of shock, only to be silenced by the threatening voice of the stranger. Holding her wrist in one hand; the knife and a still-burning-cigarette in the other, the stranger ordered her to get into the passenger seat. Frightened, she obeyed. While being forced to hand him her wallet, handphone and mp3 player, she noticed the pedestrians walking right behind her car.
The stranger was holding her wrist all the time, she couldn't escape. He was having her car key. Worst case scenario, the stranger could hijack the car, drive her to some place where no one will be able to help her nor hear her scream... She could imagine a hundred dreadful things that could happen to her. She forced herself to think of happy thoughts, unsuccessfully.
Should she call for help? No, the sight of the knife made her thought better of it.
The stranger finished ransacking her belongings. "Drive away quietly, or I'll kill you," he said to her. For some reason, she thought that threat to be funny. Dying in the hands of a robber, is a thought that had never before occur to her.
Despite that, she was so thankful that the stranger gave her back her wallet together with her identity card, driving license, ATM cards, and most importantly, her car. So with trembling hands, she obediently drove away, leaving the stranger with his pocket full of cash, a less-than-a-year-old-second-hand-handphone, and a very-much-close-to-useless-mp3 player.
She remembered the last incident when her laptop was stolen, and what the police had done to help her (after spending endless hours in the police station) - basically nothing. So this time she decided not to make a police report.
And yes, the victim in the story, that would be me.

friendship vs direct-selling

Are friendships built upon the foundation of direct-selling? This thought had never, ever came across my mind before a friend said it to me. He and a few of my buddies from university are very much into this Amway direct-selling which, according to them, would help them develop their interpersonal skills, build up their confidence, widen their people network etc etc. And most importantly, it would, or could, be their stairway to financial freedom. Despite my bad experience with direct-selling, I do not think that it is a bad idea involving oneself in the Amway business because their main intention is to upgrade themselves, which is a good thing - not putting up so much hope in getting rich through direct-selling.

I've always believed that when they asked me out, it was because they enjoyed my company. There was a time when they asked me to a movie, I told them I was thankful they rescued me from a terrible day in the office.
Actually we asked you out for a reason, one of them said to me, which was when I found out there would be a Amway meeting on that weekend.
But then I managed to convince myself that even if they weren't going to ask me to attend that meeting, they would definitely still asked me out no matter what. In other words, the Amway thingy is not the only (or main) reason we were there. I believed it's true, I still do.

I received a call yesterday morning, which broke my heart entirely. He tried to convince me to join Amway as a member, asking me to support them, said he was asking as a friend. I would be more than happy to do so, emotionally and finanacially (as in the mere RM80 membership fees), had not he said that our friendship is build upon the foundation of direct-selling. To be fair, those are not his exact words, but that's how I interpret it.

He said that if not because they were all members of this Amway thingy, they wouldn't have met once every week on the Monday meetings, they wouldn't have something in common to talk about, and they wouldn't even meet each other. So I should join them this big family so that we can keep in touch. He said it as if it is a good thing, as if it is something to be proud of. I mean, how can you be so proud, when you need direct-selling to bring your friends and you together? How can you be happy, knowing that your friends and you would just ignore each other, get on with your lives and forget about your buddies if Amway does not exist? I was deeply hurt by the things he told me, but i hid my feelings over the phone, pretended that I was perfectly fine, and told him I was happy to help out.

Now that I think about it, I feel so stupid. I was so glad when they asked me out. I was so glad that they remembered me when they have get-togethers. I'd been looking forward to meeting them up consistently, even after graduation. I imagined going for movies or dinners on Friday nights, occasional clubbings on Saturday nights, and some mid-night mamak stall or McD. But now I fear that not being an active member of Amway, I'd eventually be forgotten. (I feel so ridiculous even as I'm writing this. It is the worst excuse anyone can think of to try to convince a person to join direct-selling.)

I worry and fear for the day that I do not have a single friend in my life. The thought of losing you, anyone of you, is unbearable.

Bali Day 4

On day 4 we went to Tanah Lot temple, which literally means "land in water". The temple was surrounded by sea water.

The temple behind me would be in the middle of the sea when the water level rises.

We came across some people shooting a movie somewhere around the temple. The girl cried till her mascara smudged and the guy hugged her. I wanted to know whether the actors were famous so I asked the tour guide. He said he didn't know them.

A picture of Eric while we were on our way to the temple in the sea.

An artistic picture of me taken by Ling Yue who was trying to be artistic.

Next stop was Mengwi, the temple where the King prays. And there was a sign saying women who were having their period can't enter the temple compound. I did anyway. :P

There was a tower that we could climb to view the whole temple.

We went to Bedugul, the Cameron Highlands of Bali. It was raining and it was damn cold and very foggy.

We came across this jetty and so warrior Lao Ann and warrior Yoyo decided to have a sword... erm, no... umbrella fight.

And then warrior Xiao Ming decided to join the battle.

It was rainy season in Bali (or maybe it was because of LingYue the rain goddess?). In tourist spots we could see kids trying to rent umbrellas.

One of the famous souvenirs from Bali is handicraft. I was really impressed by their 3-D carvings.

Yes, of course, the ever infamous Lao Ann. When I scanned through the pictures and deciding which to post in my blog, I couldn't help but notice this blurry-looking picture of his. "Bu neng ding" (tak boleh tahan)!