My House, My PENTAGON?

End of week 5.

How is it hanging out there? Hope it’s nothing like a cough and things start smelling like bacon. The weather is like the trains on the railway track these days: clouds come, then go, then the next one cometh. And before you know it, you’re soaked.

It was a really busy busy week. Had an assignment, an ongoing assignment, an incoming assignment, and an essay for countdown to New Year. And since the sun set at around 4pm these days, it brings back the memories of working overtime back at home whenever I walk out into the dark in campus. Minus the driving. And the quick stops for supper at the coffee shops.

As mentioned in the previous, yeah, I’ve moved out of campus, and into a proper British housing area, but with lots of students. Think of it as the area surrounding UTAR: like 21 out of 10 houses are rented out to kids that flew ten thousand miles from home, with a couple of angry neighbours slipped in between.

So let me run you through the property first. Gotta 5 rooms; 3 toilets (2 dump, 1 drizzle, all mutually exclusive in their respective cubicles); a kitchen big enough for a Kelisa; a living room that can hold a couple of sharks and enough seating for our, err, jingles, all 5 jingles; stairs steeper than a chicken’s bottom; and a big, utterly useless plot of land known to man as the garden that sits as a constant reminder of why the landlord just didn’t extend the house all the way to the boundaries so that the toilet rolls wouldn’t disintegrate when they roll down the perpendicularly built staircase. But even with all these, one fact remains: that it is indeed a very nice house. Its gotta new cooking hood; washing machine that dries and a drier that washes; great IKEA sofas for 5 gigantic jingles; nice carpets; and the sheer number of locks on the front door that its right up there with Mr Bean’s, and is probably the best display unit on the variety of things you can possibly put up onto a door.

Let’s move on to the rooms then. The house layout is comparable to what you find at home; double storey terrace houses, with 1 room downstairs and the rest vice versa. The ground floor room is the biggest, and though unlikely to be able park a truck in there, it could maybe hold 3 years worth of old newspapers. Or roughly the size of a Hyundai Sonata 2.0. Full spec, not less.

Upstairs, the size of the rooms now can be properly illustrated on a bell-shaped curve. Except that it’s the bell you install onto your bike. Upstairs is where the extreme lies, very much like how a cute little roll of toilet paper sits next to the humungous kitchen wipes. There are 2 proper, rectangular-shaped rooms, both facing the main road, and both occupied by equally rectangular people, I meant bed frames. Ones got a window the size of a, err, small window; the other has got bar stools and a really high table to accommodate the heater underneath. No, it’s not the stools you make when you eat 15 burgers at the nearby pub, ‘tis those high chairs that are upright and designed to create epic proportions of discomfort to your jingles.

Then, on the other spectrum of kee-eee-ring bell, there’s the ‘reasonably sized’ room that will probably park a Smart, provided that the car comes with a sunroof for the driver to escape. But then again, the car will be blocking the room door, so he’ll still have to figure out a way to leave through the ceiling. Or just come in something else. An ironing board, perhaps. Anyway, swaying out of topic, an apologetic salute if you need some. So yeah, it’s a cosy room, almost squarish in size, but has a window that you can hang 3 weeks’ worth of laundry to dry. And still get light into the room. Big.

Last, but not least (in terms of size, of course) is my room. Positioned right in the middle of the bell graph, where metal hits a bigger piece of metal, it betters the rest of the rooms as my friend discovered recently; it’s got more walls than any other parts of the house. 10 to be precise, 5 if you start crying. Part of the chimney goes through my room, hence the few extra walls. And THE PENTAGON sits right at the corner of the upper floor, which is why I can only open the main door and the wardrobe one at a time. Otherwise, it would look like something out of Narnia, and people would start entering my room and walking into my socks. The window is also probably one of the largest, but with such a view out of it, I’d rather move the wardrobe there. My room faces the ultimate representation of extreme garden maintenance, and the railway track, so there’s nothing to surprise me every day, unlike the taekwondo wushu I-P-MAN ducks last year. But at least it’s quiet, and I’m pretty delighted about like. Unlike the heater that is installed right next to my bed that if I max it out at night, I’ll wake up looking like your typical English breakfast; ham&ham.

So there you have it, short post with whimsy ideas and queasy language. Anymore apologies you need, you’d have to YouTube it yourself. This is it, my house, my crib, my grotto, whatever you want to call it. I think I’d call it THE PENTAGON. Or maybe not.

Staircase

My window. See, I'm not lying.....

Kitchen

Main Entrance

Sofa, baby!!

p.s. photos turned out weird on the blog, blame the 3-megapixel limit I'd used so that it would load on blogger. Otherwise, it'd be 12, and no photos will get uploaded.

It's Been Awhile.......

Week 4 of term 1. Year 2.

Indulging in some micro-blogging again. Seriously seriously got no time for anything. I’m not kidding. The toilet’s no longer got space for any bookshelves. See, I told you.

A bit of updating before I do the big B(Log). I’m now out of the Land of the Ducks. Uni policies insist on doing so for second year, I’m just playing my part. So, no more ducks, but I’ve yet to name this 5-room, 1-bath place. Maybe I’ll just call it 1BATH, like how people like to shriek 1U or something. What do you think? But don’t think it will do, sounds too much like the other uni. Moley-donkey, gotta think of another name. Need more time for that......

Managed to dig out something I punched over the summer holidays. Yeah, I know, that’s why I’m gonna hit you with some numbers: 3 months I left the blog idle, 2 months I’d been on the job (and on the edge of my seat), 4 weeks into the term and I don’t even have 1 minute to type out something proper. Bear with me, I suppose time will tell if more time will come.

Here we go.

“One month into my internship.

One of the many things that I have learnt over the past few weeks on the job is why I seldom hear working people talk about subscribing to the TV movie packages i.e. HBO, Cinemax and StarMovies. Well, it’s not that it costs an elephant to maintain the monthly subscription, nor is there limited rubbish, I mean movies, to kill time with. It’s just that there’s no donkey time to even sit down and watch anything during weekdays, or at least for my part. I used to be a super pinch-me-I-think-I-saw-Jet-Li-at-Petaling-Street crazy fan of movie channels, and a strong believer that the creator of HBO should be awarded Nobel prizes, for the peace they bring when I was kept occupied for the few hours. It’s comforting to know that you have the 3 channels at the mercy of your fingertips, and the sense of security that there’s always something that the next channel could offer once a movie ends (or you could just watch a few ‘behind-the-scenes’ while waiting for the next film to arrive, or make the crucial dash to the washroom, if you know what I mean). But then again, these days, I think I’m losing the urge to sit in front of the ‘box (or to update the term, the ‘panel) on weekdays. Mind you, I still fiddle with the remote control once in a while, but movie channels are usually out of the question.

Which brings to the topic of how some movies can be total rubbish. Even for a short while. Such as “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen”, on which I burnt my hour and a half. I thought I could re-live some of those pre-uni times by killing an emptied-slot Saturday afternoon at home, but little did I know I was better off counting sea-shells in the monsoon drain; there won’t be any, but that’s just how bad the movie is. Oh, mind you, the cast is strong, with ex-sexy-bow-tie-and-crocodile-shoe James Bond man, Sean Connery leading the team of, among a few, an invisible man, an invincible man, a vampire, a hybrid, and a, err, policeman. With 2 guns. That will never jam up. Oh, and before I forget, the boatman.

Don’t get me wrong. I used to be a big fan of “The Invisible Man” and “Van Helsing” and “Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde” books, and notwithstanding, Mr. Bond(s), but to see all of them gather up in this Indiana Jones adventures-que film made me keen to question if the movie line is a bit too saturated. There’s too many big-shot, famous characters that we have watched and read about somewhere else, yet in this movie only played small, almost cameo roles while the focus is largely focused onto a Brit and an American who possesses no superpowers, making them seem less EXTRAORDINARY compared to the rest, if I must. If there’s something to enjoy in this film, it would be the relatively cool graphics they used on some of the characters. Like Dorian Gray for example. The immortal man who never ages, sand-like stuffs start to spew out of him when he gets shot. Or how the Invisible Man, walking around carrying a book of some sort. Yeah, you could say the people at the Fantastic Four franchise did a better job of hiding Jessica Alba, but it’s just as refreshing to see such natural movement to the book as it floats mid-air, but just as organic as someone holding it.

Yet, like how a small piece of gold disappears when thrown onto a pile of shredded paper, the movie is brought down by, you guessed it, the relatively un-cool graphics. The ship was the funniest of them all. A rough estimate with my finger on the screen tells me it’s about as tall as the Statue of Liberty, yet it’s able to sail through the tight, shallow waters of Venice half submerged. Without getting stuck. Amazing. And let’s not forget the car. It is fine that engineers in the past weren’t, let’s say, ‘well informed’ that it’s easier to steer an axle rather than 2, and there wasn’t any thing called the power steering in the past to control 4 front wheels, so let’s call it a day with that and let it be. But to see the car race through a collapsing Venice, without any debris scratching the detailed paint of the uglio-mobile nor any falling on the precious head of the Western policeman, is off the charts in the non-humour humourous scale.

So, my verdict? Its a good movie if you don’t have any pre-installed ideas of vampires, transforming dudes and invisible man stuck in your head. And it’s not that bad too if you don’t mind graphics coded by polar bears using Wordpad (think 2012), then this movie is tailor made for your Saturday afternoons. Otherwise, go watch somewhere else. Like Animal Planet or something.

And oh, yes, I am back at home, where I came from. Just a little story-telling, the night I had to leave London, my flight was delayed by a mise-mise-mise-miserable 2 hours. Airbus, please please hurry up with the A380 deliveries, and if you do, cows will grow less beard so they are less painful to look at. Or that the wine next year will taste better than when Boeing delivers the Dreamliner. Whatever it is, you’ll be blessed for doing good deeds for students and inter-continent travellers, like us. Otherwise, it’s the usual story, and KLIA leads my charts in airport trolley quality. Their flawless design, ergonomic wheels and perfectly-weighed brakes did a great job in keeping my luggage together.

And it also amazed me how strategically-located our airport is, that it slowly creates anticipation as you approach the city by car. You land in the airport and see modern, extravagant world class design. Then you leave the place and it looks like you’re driving in the middle of Borneo, albeit on well-lit, 4-lane highways, and you’d be like thinking whether you landed in KL, Northamptonshire or something. But as you cruise along the highway, you’ll notice the landscape along the road changing slowly. Very slowly. Almost like how some movies focus on one place and let the seasons pass for a few years; rain, leaves, snow, wind, rain, leaves, snow, something like that. Roadside, it starts with trees. Then the houses start to appear. Then advertisement boards. Then condominiums. Then factories. Then more advertisement boards. Then it’s the combination of the few. Then you know you’ve landed spot on when you see the Twin Towers. Amazing. Just amazing.”

That’s all for now. Will end with the movie poster by lugaluda.com. And a picture of the Pagani Zonda Cinque from www.webridestv.com because its a mean-looking machine. Bing.

Paris, STOP Signs and French Taxi Driver.

Week 7 of exam term.

3 days after the last of my exam papers. And I lost count of the number of times I said that I neglected UnderWhere. No excuse this time, not that I ran out of them, but I rather keep them for some other time.

Think I left this blog idle for more than 2 months already. But even I couldn’t help it, and to say that what I covered this year is a million times harder than what A-Levels had to offer isn’t a pleasing statement at all. But anyhow, let’s update you guys on what’s happened, what’s happening and what happens soon with this micro-blog post again, compiling short stories that were well hidden in my HDD over the past have-little-monkey-idea how many weeks.

So, let this begin.

“Some week in the middle of the holidays.

I lost my sense of time, and have no idea how long I left my blog idle. There are good reasons for it: late night outings, an unforgettable holiday, odd trips to the library, stuff like that. I know, I’m full of excuses, but I can’t help it either.

And its even more odd now that I am blogging from the library. Mind you, I didn’t walk 10000 miles here just to write a handful of nonsensical sentences with a touch of humour and sarcasm, just taking a break. From my work. And the crazy mother and kid sitting next to me.

Ok, enough of the sad stories, and lets blog.

The final day of the term was epic, and when I say epic, I really mean EPIC. Held in Copper’s Room that night was Foam Party. I have little idea what was that, hence I didn’t get the tickets for it. My bunch of friends did, and little did they know they were about to burn 5 pounds into thin ash, but more on that later.

So, the plan was that, I join them for pre-drinks to the party at about 9pm, and as they head to the party, I grab one of my friend’s guitar and head back to the land of the ducks. Then I sit and wait and once they are sick of the foam, we head down to Coventry for another round of, err, social event.

So far so good, and I headed to their place for some drinks. Expectedly, soon, everyone started saying weird stuffs, and their faces were as red as STOP signs. Unexpectedly though, one of the red-faced guys decided to get more drinks, drinks that can only be bought at the counter, not off the shelf. Fast forward the story by an hour, and all you see by the end of the day are people answering the public phone, people looking for non-existent keys and people who couldn’t walk in a straight line. Surprisingly, perhaps too pre-occupied with the guitar, I manage to stay in shape throughout the “event”, only to act as THE emergency worker of the night, keeping my friends off the streets and back to their room. Didn’t go home with the guitar though.

Since then, its night after night of gatherings with my future housemates, and the earliest I manage to get back to the land of herons was at 1....am. I also discovered that sunrises in the Duck’s Pandora can be breathtaking, as I manage to see them on 3 consecutive days, one of them when I was on my way back from a whole night of cheesy jokes. Breathtaking it really was.

And then there was a trip to a job fair in London, where I suggested we wear formal. They chose to think that I was making some donkey jokes, and we ended up being the only people at the fair not wearing formal. But lets not talk about this now, I know I don’t want to.

Ok, now for some news. Remember the time when you read about the public transport strike in Paris a few weeks ago? I can tell you now, it was called off. Cos the French taxi driver told me so. “No, no strike, all transport still go....” or something like that, he said. And that’s all I have to say about my trip to Paris. No, I’m not kidding. Let’s put it this way. Imagine, you are gracefully riding on a horse, galloping across the Grand Canyon with maximum bounce and at speed of a, err, horse. Then imagine, that the horse is a wooden one, and there’s no padding between the horse and your big brass buns, and the wooden piece of junk is bouncing so hard your nose just became your eyes and your kidney stones fell out through your ears. That was how my trip went. We massively overspent until all that’s left in our wallets were dust and some more dust.”

So, yeah, the holidays. So much happened within that 5 weeks that if I have to tell them to you over coffee, we’d be better off drinking in Costa Rica just in case we run out of beans. But I’ll try to stay within the 25,000-word limit.

So, when we were not in Paris or London, we did picnic around the campus area, one of the more epic one was set in front of my friend’s place, where we placed the mat down and suddenly, weird stuffs like a pot of soup, bananas and Econs books (!) started appearing out of nowhere. We’d then took it a step further, bringing the party all the way to probably the nicest place in Uni : Heronbank. Good weather, great view of the lake and even more swans and ducks. Epic.”

Then, the “exam” term began. I name it the exam term for something that even I found interesting: there were almost zero classes altogether in this term, which is the total opposite from home, where classes increases by the factor of three thousand and twenty-twelve as the world inches closer to examinations. A fresh approach, and one which I wouldn’t expect to happen at home anytime soon, for cutting classes meant cutting attendance as well. Moving on:

“Week 1 of term 3. The exam term.

Good to hear that we have virtually zero classes, that equals to more time to do the right thing. Or maybe not.......”

So what happened? That you’ll have to wait til the next post (or else the 25,000-word post will become a health hazard).

And now that summer holidays officially begin, and I have a few more weeks before leaving for home, allow me to briefly brief you on what to expect from the coming posts. There’s going to be a handful of full product reviews, stuffs that I lived with for the past 9 months. Also, hopefully, there will be some updates in the car and business industry (I hardly touched a car magazine in the past 4 months and recently stopped my Economist subscription, but will try my best not to disappoint). And to end this post, I will continue my effort to put up more photos onto this photo-non-intuitive blog.

Until then, let’s look forward to a better tomorrow.











From top: at Leamington Spa, a town near campus: Paris trip, including the Eiffel Tower, Arc De Triumph and The Lourve

Kungfu Panda, Useless Machines and Polo Candy

Monday of week 10.

Coz I don’t like them make the panda do kungfu.

That’s what my friend said when I told her about Kungfu Panda. Cool.

Aside from that, things had gone fairly okay. Forgive me for the 2-week break. I think its 2 weeks, but doesn’t seem to matter much, when week 10 is the last week before the 5-week Easter holidays begin.

Not much going on as well in the past 2 weeks. Well, the weather seemed to have changed for the better. It’s been very sunny these days, and the sun only leaving us at about 6pm, which is nice, because nobody likes a jog in the dark at 4°C. Walking to Tesco had also been a much more pleasant journey with the light.

Shopping in there though, was not very pleasant, as usual. But things took a turn for the worse last Wednesday. I was in a hurry that particular afternoon, so I only got about half the stuff I wanted to buy initially. Seeing that the queue at the cashier was short (which does not happen very frequently in this corner of the Earth), I made a run for it, only to be stopped by a staff, who asked me to use the self check out machine. Just to let you know, a self checkout machine is a cashier without a cashier in it. You scan the barcodes yourself, pack the stuff yourself, make the payment yourself and get out of there. Unfortunately, I belong to the group of sensible beings who never trust these digital stuffs, because they are bound to fail. Which it did. So did the rest of the staff in the store.

I did tell Ms Bossy that I prefer to queue. She said it would be quicker to use the dumb machine. I said I have all the time in the world to queue. She insists on me using that shitbox. Okay, very well, I’ll give it a try. So I loaded the stuff onto the counter top and started to scan the things. My first packet of instant noodles went well. The second didn’t, and already I was cursing. So I asked for assistance. Then Ms Constipated came to my counter, fiddle with her keys and my noodles, and it scanned. My third one again refused to show up on that piece of donkey machine, and this time Ms Constipated came back, and said “It wouldn’t scan if you put too many things on the counter.” Okay, got it, and it would have been nice if you told me earlier, and got rid of that pissed-off expression of yours. Hence the name. She looked more annoyed than my neighbour’s dog when my slippers went over the fence back at home. I think she probably found this young man a really big dumbo for not knowing how to operate the electronic elephant dump, but then again, Ms Constipated, do you know the difference between the Cournot and Bertrand model, and how is it related Kreps-Scheinkman theory? If not, then what are you fussing about? There’s bound to be something that’s beyond one’s knowledge, and it is unfortunate that today, I am stuck with this piece of junk appliance. Get yourself transferred to the cold storage department if you only want to show off that cold look and don’t intend to help out desperate customers who are forced to face the chicken feed machine in the store, like myself. And in the end, it did take me longer to get out of there compared to just queuing at the cashier. So much for customer service.

This led me to recall if there’s any of these ciplak machines back in Tesco Mutiara Damansara. And if I’m not wrong, there’s NONE. And I came up with a few reasons for these useless scanners to just remain in this part of the world. Firstly, the cashiers in KL would pack up your shoppings into plastic bags for you, so already it’s an advantage, or should I say, more pleasurable to let them do the job while you are busy searching for coins. Then, the queues in Mutiara are almost always 4 trolleys long at most, and there are a handful of express counters that cater for rushing customers. Again, no reason to employ those orangutan machines. But more importantly, and this why I think those plastic machines would be left to rot if installed in Mutiara, is that problems would be solved quicker with cashier around than otherwise. She scans an item, you find it too expensive and don’t want it anymore, she says no, cant do, you look at her with the George Clooney stare, she shouts for some dude who comes running with some keys, beep-boop-beep and back to business. If you, at the self checkout thing, scanned something you didn’t want, and the customer service guy is out for lunch, you might as well drown yourself with Pepsi if you insist on not buying it. And patience, I presume, is never KLite shoppers’ forte.

Ok, enough ranting. Apologies for that if you need some. Lets do some news. Toyota seemed to have disappeared from the automotive radar. This brake (or the lack of it) issue really reduced their public image to a piece of toilet roll, and no amount of bowing seemed to make things better. Really feel sorry for them. BUT, BUT, yo, chaps and chapess at Toyota, more reason for you to launch that FT-86 as soon as possible, cos you can be sure that for those who buy this car, braking is definitely not an issue. They’ll probably be modified and installed with Brembos the size of dinner plates and braided steel brake lines and floor mounted paddles, but, you get my point. It’ll sell.

GM, cheekily, had also had their own set of recalls, probably to check on the brakes too. No, no, just joking. Their recall centers on some faulty power steering. Which, if you give it a good thought, seems much more dangerous than the thing in Toyota. Tell me which is worse: not being able to slow down for a tree, but still able to put it in neutral to regain braking and steer away? OR braking hard, tyres smoking, but not being able to steer away from it? I can’t tell what’s in your head, but seems to me that if you can’t steer, you can’t drive.

Then there’s a new kid in the block of billionaires. A new kid who just moved in and blew the pants off the neighborhood. Haha, no, not really. He seemed more like the quiet kid on the block who keeps running after the ball and one day disappears with it and never returns. Whatever, cheers to Carlos Slim, richest chap in the world, and current world record holder of the most number of Zeros in his bank account and financial portfolio. 9 of them, if you must. He’s worth US$53.5 billion, according to Forbes, and this made me wonder, if he’s on a shopping spree, this is probably what he could afford. He could get about 40,000 Bugatti Veyrons, which is about ten times more than what’s produced. He could build 2 Burj Khalifa side by side with change to spare to build some waterfalls. He could buy every single thing that Lithuania produces in a year by matching their GDP. Or he could buy 53 billion tubes of Polo, and give each person on the planet 7 of them, and keep 10 for himself.

So, I guess that’s all for this post. And nope, I’m not going back to KL for Easters. Will try to update more frequently, now that the holidays are coming. And to end this, here’s a pic that I’d got from EVO.co.uk of the car that might potentially save Toyota from trouble: the FT-86. See ya.

How Not To Reply an Email

Right into week 8.

Once again, a fistful of reasons for the delays. My birthday bash, Chinese New Year, tests, essays, economics summit, the list goes on. And more unfortunate is that I cant tell you all about it in this post. Or at least not yet.

‘Tis gonna be a short post this time (I’ve got 2 essays and a test coming up), so just to keep you faithful readers occupied for the time being, here’s a guide on HOW NOT TO REPLY AN EMAIL. Below are 2 emails that I’ve sent out so far regarding my group project. Mind you, I didn’t change the names in the email to protect any image or something, I really sent them out this way, although her name is obviously not Marion. And apologies to Sniff Petrol, but I just can’t get enough of the nickels thing.

First email is a reply to my friend regarding a group meeting:

Tickle my nickels, the CDA project art thou come.

Small wonder today the weather ain’t so Gary, the ducks snorting their own turd and people fumbling around fully feathered just as heavily as they are shedding it. oyster sauce and water chestnut knows no fear in this muddy day. So does the park bench and the diving birds.

Big wonder, thou, is our project. great biscuits of suggestions, thought there aint masterminds anymore in the world of Elizabeths and Roxette. Just one piece to point out: maybe we should get our squeakies together one day to skim through the work before assigning the cake to each person? A little brainstorming and Ninja Turtle would do no harm.

Aside from that, well done, Marion, and looking forward to everything the world has to offer.

Gary

Second email (so far) is to ask if she sent me the right thing, because I have little to no idea what was in my inbox:

Fundle my candle,

Great weather today, Marion. Not too cold to freeze the squiggles, and not too warm to bake the nickels. Same can’t be squirmed of the industrial trial today. The panting peacock just had to wiggle 2600 weasels when all number housewives could squeak an amoeba just under 10000 to make some biscuits. Little known, I fancy it. As effective as getting the kangaroos to stop breathing to reduce CO2 by 35%; sounds like monkey Valentine, but give it a few clockers, and then they stop breathing for good. Whoopee.

Back to today’s oysters. Just curiosity for peanuts, I wonder if you saw what you just squirrel-mailed me? Well, 12 jars of “which provided at.......” and “how much pay to s......” Good cookies, I reckon, but overdone to the pencil. Almost like calling him Alexander the Third......from left. Sigh, I’ll have to sausage up at 7 tomorrow and start the Sta-tallatta in the house of books.

Anyways, good work once again Marion, and looking forward to the next snuggle up. Thought I have no half watermelon when will it be.

Gary

Well, this is it for this time, on HOW NOT TO REPLY AN EMAIL.

Movie Review: The Warlords and 2012

End of week 4.

Sheer carelessness and overconfidence once again left me all alone to spend my weekends with the mallards and avian. I’d gone through Friday without giving a thought at all that my friends would be out of campus for the weekends. Then on Saturday, I discovered some facts and a lot more. A friend went to London, some went to Sheffield, a few went to watch football, some went for rugby, and the rest went to watch footballers play rugby.

So, with the Anas platyrhynchos still scouring for grass and weed outside, I decided to catch up with some movies. After rummaging here and there, I found two films that would suit the cold and not so quiet night (my flatmate decided to turn the kitchen next door into ZoukOut ) : The Warlords and 2012.



So, lets begin with The Warlords, or “Tau Ming Chong” in Cantonese. Chinese war movie about some dynasties in the past (Wiki says Qing, wont doubt them), starring the cool Jet Li, the cooler Takeshi Kaneshiro and the, err, quite cool Andy Lau, and the subtly pretty Xu JingLei. Its about a soldier who left the military after being betrayed by the institution, leaving 5000 of his dudes dead on battlefield. Then he joined some thugs and advised them to join the army, so that they can be bigger thugs. He then got betrayed by the institution yet again, and almost everyone relevant in the movie dies in the end. Winner of, amongst the many, Best Film and Best Actor award. Mind you, they had 2 nominations for best actor. That’s how good the movie was. Until I watched it.

Let’s talk about the good sides first, as I don’t want to give you the negative image as yet. The war and fighting scenes were excellent, and the cinematography used was unusual compared to other war epics such as Red Cliff (1&2). The usual SS (stab and slit) was present, with the lead actors killing their way to victory. But what caught my eye was the way the director focuses more on the ‘unknown’ soldiers, rather than just making the lead actors look invincible. Peter Chan, the man behind the scenes, had made the side casts feel more integrated into the plot, rather than just, well, side casts. Whereas in Red Cliff, the generals and ministers didn’t even bother about the small ones. Here, I like the scene where Andy Lau begs for food from the ministers, and subsequently distributing the buns to his people. Doesn’t seem like much, but not often seen on other movies either.

Also, I liked the thought-provoking idea of a man with his principles. Jet Li strongly believed that all the villagers should be left untouched, while all soldiers must be killed. Again, doesn’t sound like much, until you see Andy being chained to the pillars while screaming not to kill the enemies who surrendered. Jet insists that if they keep the enemies alive, his soldiers will have to share the food with the other useless squirrels, while Andy thought it was inhumane to kill them because they surrendered. But Jet then said that, if they chose to be in a war, they chose to kill, and be-killed, so to speak. Both sounded logical and sensible at the same time. And that really made me wonder, if that happens to some pitiful chap in real life, how on earth is he going to solve it.

The negative parts (though not as negative as the next review) is just my opinion on how to make this movie better. And all I’d like to say is: the plot is too thin. Even kids with an IQ of -24 can tell that in the end, who dies and who doesn’t. The idea of betrayal is just too obvious. Then, there isn’t much depth in the dialogues, not like in Red Cliff, where the generals talk over coffee, or tea, on the strategies to attack the opponents and they draw it on maps and this makes you think if its viable or not. Here, it’s just showing the old, wrinkly imperial people BS-ing with Jet and Andy, and that’s really annoying when you start to see those antique beings as people sitting behind cashiers and registers. You know what I mean, thinking that you are a yob, a nutter who can’t speak English, an idiot who has to pack your own groceries, those sort of stuff.

And the budget. US$40 million. Microscopic by American standards, and especially the next movie. But the relatively big budget is not reflective of some core parts of the movie: to make the movie look good. Look at Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, with only US$15 million to play with, and they make people fly and mixing subtle soft focus and deep colour contrast with intense er-hu music. And Red Cliff: US$80 million, which in coins will fill up my whole flat with change to spare, and once again, spotted with soft, slow close-ups on the magnificent Lin ChiLin. And lets not forget the part where the camera chases the pigeon at the end of Part 1, and you can indulge yourself at the immense detailing of each and every vessel of the enemies. Here in Warlord? The only entertainment the lead actors get are some cheap looking opera at a run-down restaurant. No ladies in silk dancing away, no talented old lady singing and playing the er-hu. Which is the total opposite of The Banquet: undisclosed budget, but in SD format, looks as vivid as HD, and hence freaking beautiful to watch.

All in all, it left me a little disappointed, though I had high expectations for it. But a good, thought-provoking movie altogether, which can’t be said for the next review.

2012. Which in my language, would probably mean “I have really low expectations for it, and the good thing is, it was fulfilled.” And I’m forced to tell you all the backside, opps, bad side to it first because you’ll have to give me some time to think about something that hasn’t gone wrong with it.



First, the graphics. I thought it was forgivable, since I was watching it in Flash. Then I saw the earthquakes and splitting roads and I thought they made the movie with Microsoft Paint. The limo was stupid, the drive through the collapsing glass building was stupid, the Bentley spinning on the ice when it leaped off the plane was stupid, and the arcs were incredibly stupid. When the limo made the jump, the passengers at the back felt nothing. Lincoln suspension technology at its best? My foot. Then it crashed into the glass building, and while in there, the building seemed to stop collapsing. And there were no one in there, no tables, no chairs, just some paper. Maybe they drove through the income tax department? And the Bentley defied the laws of physics, and created its own, that is “if thy moving object falls on ice at the speed of sound, thy shall spin one round and stop, and not damage any bumpers or destroy any wheels in the process.” Hilarious. And finally the arcs, and I said finally because I won’t go any deeper with the graphics or I will go on for months, is that it left the Tibetian mountains through a hole less than the quarter of the height of the hills. And crashed into Everest looking about half the height of it. Did the water that entered inflated it?

And then there’s the sheer un-common sense of some things. In 3 years, Mr President Obama will turn from a 40-ish year man with 6 packs and white teeth, to a 70-year-old with alarmingly receding hairline and a water bed under his shirt in the movie. Doesn’t make any sense at all to me. I mean, if they want to make it as real as possible, then go all the way. And his daughter really grew up in the 3 years.

Then there’s the free riding problem. Yuri and the Gang paid a billion Euros per pax for a cruise round the Everest Sea (huh?) but those Chinese builders and a few thousand more dudes (where did they came from? How did they know about the secret project?) that were hanging around the dock could board for free. Talk about first come, last serve. Like Nando’s in Birmingham.

There’s also the cleverness of Dr Satyam, the dude who lives right above the most unstable part of the planet, containing active plutocarbohydranikejenifferpotatosmiroffbananapinkpanther matter which would cause earthquakes and sinking land mass. And is more worried about the safety of Americans than his family above. AND whose house is the only place on earth not hit by an earthquake. But a tsunami. Crikey. And did you notice him and few thousand people trekking as the arcs were closing? Guess where they’re going? You’re right, I have no idea either.

But there’s some wit to the movie, I suppose. Like how Professor Adrian said, “This room could fit 10” when he was butler-ed to his cabin aboard the, I dunno, HMS INTERNATIONALLE FREAKING EXPENSIVE CRUISE TRIP, but didn’t tell the captain so, and instead just asked so that those Chinese engineers be invited to the loading deck. He’s smart, I can tell, cos if David Hasselhoff landed in his room, he’d have to spend the night picking up burgers from the carpet.

Dr Gordon was a genius too. ‘The Breast Guy’ at day, the ‘Pilot who only had an hour of lessons and then could fly the largest Russian airplane’ dude by night. Speechless.

Also, I suppose these guys are all used to the cold, as they could just walk in the freezing cold in Tibet wearing nothing but a coat for Curtis, Bermuda shorts for Dr Gordon, t-shirt and some fancy hat for the kids, sleazy Tamara, Yuri’s chick wearing her dog and Yuri himself, forever in a coat and tie, whether he’s waiting for the landing gear to repair itself, or when he’s launching his kids into the air.

So, what was enjoyable in the movie? Well, I found this movie quite hilarious, actually. Like the guy who was supposed to be Arnold Schweazzehaihfiafiger quite funny, desperately copying his accent. Or how the software on the arc was not written in Chinese, given that those guys built the thing. Or how is it ever possible that even after the worse volcano eruptions the world has ever seen, the skies were still as clear as Lithuania. When scientists used to say that dinosaurs were possibly killed because the blanket of ashes stuffed their noses and turned them into what’s known today as Shell V-Power. AND, AND, how a stupid power drill can stop a potential 10 tonnes of arc door from closing. I mean, did you see the size of the gears where Gordon became minced meat? They were huge!

I could go on and on with this also, but just one question before I end this post. Notice that the Chinese Premier was nowhere to be seen? I dunno, maybe I just overlooked. But assuming that he wasn’t there, could it be that he was already launched into outer space with a Chinese-made space shuttle and the Taikonaut at the wheel together with the whole parliament and their families? And leave the Americans and the stupid rich people to take the plane and transit and transit again and queue up to get into arcs with the waterproof properties of a copy of The Star? I mean, this is what people should be thinking of, not “Oh, in the future only China can save the world, they have the capabilities” and stuff like that.

Long post, apologies for that if you want some. Take all the time you need in this world to read it.

Of Toyotas, Tesco and Roll-Overs

End of week 3.

Blogging can sometimes be such an arduous task. At times, so much happens in a week that it would take more than 1000 words, or even 1500 words to describe. There’s meetings on Monday, meet ups on Wednesday, Hustle on Friday and a weekend in Birmingham or something.

And then there are times where nothing faintly spectacular happened at all. Such as this week. So ordinary and mundane beyond words. And so ridiculously typical.

The weather was as usual- cold but with this gloomy “I’d like to rain, but only when you walk out without an umbrella” look. The ducks were as usual- noisy and leaving trails of undigested grass everywhere. Classes were as usual- some funny lecturers, some not so funny. Work was also as usual- a pile of them.

My kitchen was as usual- messy on Tuesdays and Thursdays, squeaky clean on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Tesco was as usual- long queues, long wait, and long walk. The Financial Times was as usual- ban big bonuses, something about Cadbury, and Gordon Brown.

It wasn’t the worse week, but it was bad enough to deserve a blogging.

It was also as usual, with people who only comment on something just by looking at it from a single perspective. Its like saying Jay Chou is as normal as my week and as handsome as a teapot, and then when you watch him live, POW!! He’s a genius, a man brimming with talent, a soul made of G sharps and A minors.

What I’m referring to is the recent recall made by Toyota on their cars to replace the floor mats. It seems that those mats, if not properly fitted, would jam the oil pedal wide open. While that sounds great for drifting, I suppose the old uncles and aunties and 401(K) recipients wouldn’t have found that funny. But leave that aside for a moment. What caught my attention were the comments made that this mass recall would damage Toyota’s outstanding reputation in their owners’ head. Err, I’m not sure about that statement though.....

Lets run through a bit of history, and go back in time when some of the new Ford SUVs left the factory, all gleaming and shiny, with its new found ability: to roll over at highway speeds. Like how ducks naturally leave their solids all over the place, the new Explorers, for some reason would turn turtle. And its not just a handful of them that were written off and hit the scrap yard: there were more than 160 cases. And what did Ford did to mend things back? I have no idea honestly, but Firestone did receive a record fine for not dealing with the issue properly. This made news and many lawsuits over the years, and then what? People are still buying Explorers until today. So my question is, if the absence of proper handling of the issue and presence of rollovers and big news done little to damage Ford’s image, then what is that small recall gonna do to Toyota and their sales charts?

I suppose it would do the sales charts even better.

It shows that Toyota cares for their customers. Though the young dudes would fancy the idea of a wide open throttle along the LDP, Toyota is now giving them the option to lift off the oil and onto the brakes in case they’re heading for the McDonalds drive-thru at the speed of light. It shows that Toyota is committed to making good, safe cars and ensure (or at least try) that their customers live long enough to return to their showrooms for another Camry. And this is the most a customer can ask from a firm.

US ’08 Mercedes GLs models have shiny, distracting dashboards. Audi Q7s (used to) have some fancy LED dash displays that when you put on a polarised sunglasses, you wouldn’t know how far you have travelled. And the Ford Escape that Car and Driver tested left the factory with rattly roof racks. But did any of them recalled their GLs and Q7s and Escapes for a replacement, or at least a repair? Nought.

Toyota, on the other hand, did recall their cars in the past a handful of times. For instance, when their Lexus cars had, for a short period of time, brake lights with a mind of their own. The market did come up with similar predictions, that the recall would in turn destroy the marquee’s image. But after the recall, a survey found that owners were indeed happy that Lexus was responsible enough to stand up for their faults, and naturally their brand confidence had grown over the years.

Thus, only time will tell if this mass recall would poke a hole through their image balloon, but I reckon Toyota customers would appreciate this even more. And if they can escape this recall unscathed, it will be a very big eye opener to both customers and other makers alike. Customers can be sure that their Toyota would not leave the factory with any major defects, while making them think if other car makers would go to such lengths for the same reason.

So, this is it, this week’s post. Business as usual tomorrow onwards.

The (EPIC?) Post

End of week 2.

Ok, I know my epic post is overdue. Big time overdue. And I also have to cancel it, due to many, many reasons. (Time constraints, time constraints and time constraints. Your choice) I’m sure you would be asking, “2 month overdue and you blame it on time constraint. How ironic, or the lack thereof.” Yes, yes, my apologies, for keeping you at the edge of your seat with the previous post, and then making you fall off when the post wouldn’t arrive until two months later.

But fear not, as I’ll replace the epic post with a less epic one, but is no less epic than the originally-planned epic one (Huh?). Due to time constraints, again, I’m unable to type the whole post from scratch. Instead, I’m dipping my toes into micro-blogging, in which I would make a compilation of blogs written on my Nokia in the past few weeks to tell you what has happened. (My Nokia keypad is 5mm wide, how micro is that!!). What I’ll do is just copy all the stuff from my QuickOffice over to Word, and see what would it turn out to be. So, let’s go!

12th December 2009. At Coventry train station, while waiting for my ride to London to arrive:

“So, I’m waiting at Coventry station. Can’t wait to get into my MH flight tomorrow, although I still have to get to London before I could start thinking of the flight back home. Didn’t know that some chocolates and t-shirts and notes can weigh this much. Think I better not put the laptop and the 1kg Cadbury together in the bag pack, or I’ll be 3 inches shorter by the end of the day. Not many people on this side of the platform. Long day ahead, I can foresee.”

Then I realised I got on the wrong platform. (Thanks Captain Platform, your info is so accurate you can start writing history text books. In Huttese). Got into the right train later on and left at 1pm. In the train:

“I wonder if all these horses and sheep and cows would be bothered by these trains passing by every few minutes. Will the noise stress out these animals, and make them skinnier and produce less milk? If so, please put them far away from these rail tracks. Prices of meat here is already expensive enough, the economy cannot afford anymore skinny and stressed animals.”

Got to London at about 3pm, and had to rush to my friend’s place, before rushing again to the shopping district in Sloan Square to collect something. While on my way back, in the Tube:

“Porsche, Porsche, Aston, Porsche, Jaguar, Bentley, Ferrari, Porsche, had never seen so many Porsches in a single night before. It’s as if the national car here is Porsche, like how we see Protons all over the place at home. I guess Rolls-Royces have some veto power or something around here, because only the Phantom can stop at the side of the road, while others cant. And there goes another Porsche.”

The next morning, had to rush for my 11am flight. At Heathrow, while waiting for boarding:

“No wi-fi in Terminal 4. But that’s not going to dampen my mood for the 13-hour flight home.”

After getting onto the plane, Mr Pilot said that some of the luggage was stuffed into the wrong plane, and the flight would be delayed. But don’t worry, because “a lighter plane can fly at a higher altitude, so this flight would only take 11 hours.”

It was touchdown 11 hours later, at 7am local time, and naturally, I wouldn’t have time to blog about anything. Heck, I didn’t even have time to meet up with my friends, only knocking on Kang’s door one evening when I happened to be around the area.

I spent a few days in Singapore, crashing Orchard Road, Ion and Zouk. Nothing much there, except that clubbing there seemed really safe, and a Visa can do wonders over there down south.

In KL, it was the usual: karaoke, movies, and eating. And spending more time at home.

2 and a half weeks later, and I’m back in London. My friend came late to pick me up in Paddington Station (I took the Heathrow express) and I was so worried that I would be spending the night there.

I went back to the home of the ducks the next day, only to return to London a week later when I was informed of a relative’s arrival there. Got there in no time, and had a great time walking around parts of London that I have not been too. But the more exciting part came the next day, when the worse-in-30-years snow fell upon London. Instincts told me to leave for Euston early, and fair enough, I suppose I caught the last train leaving the city that day, at 2pm. As the train slowly chucked northwards, the snow got thicker and thicker. And back at home, when I checked the weather forecast, 2 airports in London were totally closed, and most flights in Heathrow were cancelled. I was this close, this close to Facebook-ing in the train station throughout the night.

Then, the last micro blog came last week, when I met up with a friend in a restaurant in campus. While waiting for him:

“I’m now in one of the university’s most expensive restaurant. Yet I still have to self order. It does feel weird though, as I am paying more than RM50 per meal, and I still have to queue up to have my order taken. I mean, lets think of it, in a coffee shop back home, even if my order only costs RM1 (like what, 20 pence?) there will be a dude who comes over to take my order.

Apart from that, things had been going well so far. I spent the whole morning getting ready for a non-existant class, only to end up reading the newspaper in the library. Lecture was good too, the lecturer interesting and nonetheless keen to lecture(?)”

So, that was it. 2 months. 3 countries. And some micro blogging, which I don’t even know whether I’m using the right term. Anyway, apologies for the epic thing, and this somewhat lower-than-usual quality of blog, and as I’m still not used to uploading photos, will have to wait for that. Until then, take your time reading this post, while waiting for the next one to arrive.