So I've made it through another year (kudos to moi). Happy time all around! Choccies and champagne for everyone!!
[Man, I've a lot of posts that have that title.]
As per above, here's an update of what I've been doing for the past two weeks or so, since I seemed to have gone on an unannounced hiatus:
1) Finally. Came. HOME!! Flew back on the 23rd (or 22nd, what-ev), hung out with people I haven't seen in a year or so, haven't moved from the couch since (except to go to the kitchen). Been watching cartoons and DVDs ever since.
2) Managed to persuade my mom to let me buy Dan Brown's Angels and Demons, since she loves The Da Vinci Code (book, not movie) as well. Now, to get my mom to let me buy Patrick Suskind's Perfume. And also Robert Ludlum's The Gemini Contenders.
3) Found out a few days ago that my weight ballooned (literally!) up to 65kg. Is cutting off food as of tomorrow.
I'll post up some much-delayed photos of the things I bought over the next few days, like my Tommy Hilfiger sunglassies (oh YES!! Hahaha, I'm so sampat) and my iPod Touch (oh YES AGAIN!!).
The Tuesday before last, Ying Ying and I headed to see Madama Butterfly over at the State Theatre. It was raining like ass (I seem to have an affinity for that word these days), but it wasn't heavy when I left the office and took the tram down.
Bought the program for $15 (still cheaper than what I paid for Wicked and The Rocky Horror Show), and when we went in, we got this mini flyer that said that the lady playing Butterfly (or Cio-Cio San, the Japanese lady of the title) was replaced by another lady.
Now, I'm all for understudies getting their time in the light, but I didn't pay $90 to see the replacement.
Anyway, before the show started, this guy came out and told us that the actress advertised was down with a throat infection (or something), and that the current lady has played Butterfly a few years back.
[So at least they didn't give us the understudy.]
Our seats were awesome (in the balcony, of course). We could see the surtitles (I dunno what's with the 'sur'; I always thought it was 'sub') clearly, and the stage, and the orchestra (which is always cool in my book).
The show was lovely. The storyline's basically proof that American men are pigs. In a nutshell, it's about this military man, Pinkerton (whose name sounds British, by the way) marrying this very, very young and very beautiful Japanese girl, Butterfly (of the title) so that he can have nice time if he docks at port again (in other words, he married her just for the heck of it). He promises her that he will be back by spring; unfortunately, three years have gone by and there's no sight of him.
Up till then, she's still hopeful that he will come back, because she had his baby (oooo yes, he knocked her up. But he didn't know). As the show goes on, her hopes are dashed, and Pinkerton returns (with his new AMERICAN wife) to adopt Butterfly's child (because it's still kinda his) and take the boy back to America.
So in the end, she gives the boy up, and she commits suicide.
[It is all very emotional.]
See, kids? This is why we Asian girls should not have white boyfriends. They will get us pregnant and adopt our babies and then we'll be forced to commit suicide because we can't kill our nagging relatives ('cuzza that whole 'filial piety' crap).
[I know, I know. Words cannot describe how nerdy I am. But you may refer to me as the Uber-Geek.]
Last week or something, I was randomly looking at the iTunes Store when I found TWO(!!!) exclusives vids from the new Watchmen movie! (Out 5th March 2009)
[It's SPAZZING TIME!!!]
I couldn't watch it on my laptop, 'cuzza my Quicktime whatever is not up-to-date (it still isn't; I didn't have enough memory space to run the update thingy).
Sigh. Two more days before I can see the vids ('cuz I'd be able to transfer most of my files onto my other laptop, then I'll have enough memory to run the update file).
In the meantime, here's a gem to brighten up your day:
[It's too adorable.]
Read More......
But YES to Tchaikovsky!
Instead of going to see Madama Butterfly, Ying Ying and I went to see the Nutcracker (Yes, the ballet, with the dancing and the prancing and the pirouetting...).
[We're gonna go see Butterfly this Tuesday, though.]
Since I didn't know that the show was cheapskate enough to be held out in the open, I didn't dress for the occasion.
It was a night show, and it was one of those crazy-cold nights.
It was organised by the Australian Ballet School (SCHOOL, mind you, not COMPANY. I thought it was the COMPANY that was performing. No wonder the tickets weren't crazy expensive. Like $43 each concession). I mean, they did a wonderful job, but I woulda preferred to spend my money on the pros rather than the students.
[I did awfully well in my exams. Will brag blog about it in a few days 'cuz I need to get snapshots.]
In uni now. Will be heading down to the city to watch ZucchiniPuccini's Madama Butterfly, which, for the unitiated, is an opera. I'll blog more about it when I get back.
[YES, AGAIN!]
Yesterday was a FANTASTIC DAY(!!!!!!!) ‘cuz the new Watchmen trailer came out last night (got it on my iTunes), and I totally spazzed out. I think I actually spent an hour watching the thing over and over again.
[YES I’M A GEEK!!!]
Geeked out when The Comedian got thrown outta the window, geeked out when I saw (AND HEARD!) Rorschach, dropped jaw at how Patrick Wilson DID NOT LOOK AND SOUND LIKE PATRICK WILSON (can’t believe how much he actually LOOKED like Daniel Dreiberg IN THE COMICS!!!), SQUEEE’D when I saw the Watchmen photo being taken (excellent casting with Jeffrey Dean Morgan, by the way, he looks SO MUCH LIKE THE BLOODY FRIGGIN’ COMEDIAN!!), and GAWKED when Laurie turned and ran from the fire (which looked kinda fake by the way, but the cinematography was absolutely, ABSOLUTELY gorgeous for that bit). THEY EVEN HAD DAN’S DREAM SEQUENCE!! BOO-YEAH!!
*does chicken dance*
I don’t remember summa the lines, though; might be rewritten for the movie. Can’t wait to see Matt Frewer as Moloch; haven’t seen him in ages (Frewer, I mean, not Moloch).
AND I CAN’T WAIT TO SEE THE BACKSTORY ON RORSCHACH!!!
[I think I might be turning into one of those people who like typing in caps.]
Quibbles: Dr. Manhattan looks like Clive Owen (nothing wrong with that, but I thought he should be looking like Billy Crudup, who actually PLAYS the guy), Adrian Veidt doesn’t look blockheaded enough and, is it me, or is Zack Snyder a fan of awful Muse song? Seriously, he had Knights Of Cydonia for the 300 trailer (which turned Pamela off, by the way, and caused us to NOT see that movie in the theatres), and now this crap for the new Watchmen trailer. I’d be turned off if I didn’t love the comic.
[Don’t read the summary on Wikipedia; it makes the book sound lousy.]
The Tommyknockers is in the vein of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, where this lady, Bobbi, stumbles onto part of a spaceship, inadvertently lets out alien gas, and slowly turns herself and everyone else in town into the aliens that formerly piloted said crashed ship.
‘Tommyknocker’ is a term that the aliens adopted (based on whatever their hosts name them) from her friend Gard, our hero, who was randomly thinking about it when Bobbi named the aliens.
[Imagine if he were thinking about Butthead from Beavis and Butthead.]
Gard is the only one immune to the gas, because he has a metal plate in his head, souvenir of a skiing accident. As we go through the book, we find out that anybody with a large piece of/enough metal attached to their body can ward off the effects of the gas.
[Don’t mean they don’t die later, though.]
People who slowly turn Tommyknockers gain psychic abilities (kinda like a hive-mind, similar to the Borg, minus Alice Krige) and become electrical and electronical geniuses, inventing all sorts of weaponry (as long as they have batteries) from household items to drive off/kill outsiders late on in the book, including a huge Coke machine that runs around running people over (it WAS controlled by a Tommyknocker, who later died because Gard destroyed one of the weapons she was controlling, and the backlash of energy flowed back to her through her controls and made her brains explode).
Stephen King is a big fan of the exploding-head-and-brains routine.
As the townspeople gradually become more alien, they depend on the polluted town air for survival, as evidenced when two young Tommyknockers drive out to buy batteries and barely made it back, one dead, and the other one blinded.
In the end, with the ship finally unearthed, Gard makes it take off into space, sacrificing himself in the process. The rest of the Tommyknockers are rounded up, and they slowly dwindle and die away.
All in all, I loved it. The book scared the crap out of me. It's really quite refreshing to read this after the bore-fest that was Bag of Bones. I mean, it didn't suck, but it was really, really, REALLY slow in the beginning.
And here is a flurry of updates (flurry of posts to come later):
Started work on Monday before last (yes, I finally got a JOB(E)!!), and Thursday morning, my key decided to be a putz and not work, so I was late for work for OVER AN HOUR!!
This is the first time my room locked me out.
Luckily no one really cared (I hope!) that I was late, so it was all kewl.
It’s really refreshing to be able to come home and NOT DO ANYTHING PRODUCTIVE. I mean, I’m not saying that I am so during semesters (‘cuz usually I’d be playing my games or watching YouTube when I’m supposed to be revising or doing my assignments.), but to be able to play games and watch YouTube when I’m not supposed to be doing ANYTHING…
Priceless.
I’m having Candy From A Stranger stuck in my head now. It’s said to be a track on Britney Spears’ Circus album, but Wikipedia isn’t saying so. Anyway, there’s a debate in YouTube (over on Comments) that the song was actually sung by one of her backup singers, Myah Marie. The guy singing kinda blows, though. One comment noted that he sounds like someone’s squeezing his balls or something.
Balls squeezed or no, he sounds like a pedo. But that’s kinda what the song was trying to convey, I guess.
Candy will always symbolize Stephen King’s The Tommyknockers for me, since I was reading it while having the song on repeat. Normally I don’t read in my room (I read on the can, actually), but I had gotten to a good part a little while back, and couldn’t stop, so I continued on in my room.
Song + Book totally scared the crap out of me. And yes, I’m a dunce.
Had nasi friggin’ lemak yesterday (fuck yeah!), which set me back $13.30. Convert it, and it’s RM 40. Curry was lovely, but it wasn’t really worth it for RM 40.
Sigh. The money I spend for mediocre Malaysian food.
I didn't even know the movie was coming out this year till I chanced upon the trailer on YouTube. Being the uber-geek that I am, anything involving cool action and computer games and special effects just does it for me. Anyway, the movie is based on the awesome game that allowed players to use 'bullet time' for just about anything (although it takes a while to recharge). I heard from a LOT of people that the movie sucks ass, probably because it's more of a 'loosely-based' version rather than a direct adaptation. Now, I've only played bits of the game, so that's probably why I didn't hate it so much.
*spoilers*
Our hero is a cop. His wife and kid gets slaughtered one day, and so he's currently in the Cold Case department, trying to find any link that could lead to the killer. While investigating, this Russian chick gets murdered, and with Max's wallet (and ID) found beside her, he's on the run from the cops, while trying to find out who framed him.
As the movie progresses, Max finds out that there is a super-drug hawked on the streets, called Valkyr, which, when consumed, causes the taker to see tons of flying demons and stuffs called Valkyries.
[Now, I always thought that Valkyries were fat Viking ladies sitting on tiny horses that could fly.]
So anyway, after a murder attempt by his best friend BB (who, as it turns out, was the one who dealt the final blow on his wife), Max takes the drug to prevent hypothermia, since he just climbed out of freezing water.
[Cue cool special effects and flying things reminiscent of Constantine.]
He goes on a rampage, and finally corners BB (up on the HELIPAD!!) and kills him. Then the SWAT team comes and arrests him.
Yes. That is how the movie ends.
I couldn't help but grin when they showed the scene with the helipad, since the game ends with Max M16-ing (well, that's how I did it) the antenna tower so that it falls onto the helicopter (which was MIA in this movie. Well, there WAS one, but not the one I'm referring to).
And ALL of the bits that I played (the kitchen fire scene, the mansion scene, the muffin' ELEVATOR-LASER SCENE, and the ENDING!!!), were not in the friggin' movie.
Visually, I thought the movie was great. I liked the flying things, especially this scene where the drug made this junkie feel like he was being pulled out of the literal hole-in-the-wall by a winged demon, when actually, it wasn't.
Ryan was right, though. They only had ONE bullet-time scene (for a movie adaptation of a game requiring skills on diving-sideways-and-shooting-at-baddies), which they did WRONG ('cuz no diving hahaha), but I still thought it looked cool.
Being an expert at missing after-credits scenes, I'm gonna go see it again when I go back.
Like the fan-girl that I am, I got totally excited when I saw the trailer for Watchmen, even though I've seen the damned thing a million times already (the trailer, not the movie). Trailer doesn't promise much, but the comic was AWESOME! (Graphic novel, schmaphic novel. Still comics to me.)
March 6th is so far away... Can't wait!!
Spent the whole fucking afternoon killing bees. And my housemates are idiots.
Why? I'll tell ya.
Apparently, the bees are currently out for pollen during the day. They're everywhere. Now, every time someone finishes using the bathroom, they open the window.
Big mistake.
The bees come in, and being idiots themselves as well, they can't get out. They finally die when it's night.
Normally, when I see the two or three bees hanging about, I just use the other bathroom.
Today was an exception.
Some idiot also thought that today would be the day to USE THE BATHROOM LIGHT in the morning.
And so, the bees came in droves. Through the crack in the door, I saw at least 6 hanging about the fluorescent lights. I can even hear the buzzing from my room (I dunno whether it's 'cuz my walls are thin, or the buzzing is really that loud.).
For people who happen to be university students, they're pretty dense when it comes to cause-and-effect. I mean, it's not the first time this sorta thing has happened. It's been going on for the past coupla weeks.
Anyway, the other bathroom was infested as well, because another idiot also liked opening windows.
I had to go take a dump downstairs. It's something I try to avoid, since I DON'T STAY DOWNSTAIRS. But that's not the point here.
As if the infested bathrooms weren't enough, the bees made their way into my room (up till now, I have no idea how they got in). Instead of an afternoon spent on studying, I had to slam the windows on those nasty little fuckers, because they just won't fucking die. Really. One bee had his body cut in half, and he was still trying to fly through the glass. For ten minutes, least. Amazing.
I was thinking about calling the landlady, but someone else beat me to it. Kudos. At least now I can shower without having to circumnavigate my way through 20 tiny, wriggling, will-not-fucking-die insects on the bathroom floor.
[To be honest, I don't know that they're bees, even though they're striped yellow and black. Maybe they're wasps or fucking hornets or something.]
All my fingers are hurting now, since I spent most of the afternoon gripping the window and sliding them open and shut to get the bees out. And my piano practical is on Thursday. Woo-fucking-hoo.
So I just looked through the top 100, and my uni is nowhere in sight. Sigh.
For the rest of you interested in where your university ranked, linkie below:
The Times Higher Education - QS World University Rankings
Another reason to WANT to go to Harvard. Or Yale, or Cambridge, or Oxford...
This is too cute to NOT embed. Enjoy.
28/12/2014: Re-posted because embed was dead.
Is now working on Anne Rice's Lasher, although since I just collected Queen of the Damned (also by her) this morning, I'll probably divide my time between the two. And exams are in less than a month.
Sigh.
And the edition of QotD I'm having right now (the only one available in the uni) doesn't have Stuart Townsend on the cover.
Dubblesigh-er.
So I bought my first Dean Koontz book a few weeks ago, The House of Thunder. It wasn't thick, but it was gripping enough. Got it for $5.75, which translates to RM18. Not bad for a book that normally retails for RM32.95 or something.
Finished Cry to Heaven (also Anne Rice; I'm going wild here) some time back. It was okay for me, although the revenge bit was what kept me going.
Right now my desk is swamped with textbooks and literature on the Romantic era in music history. It's for an assignment due this Monday, but somehow I'm not really panicking yet. I've still like, 500+ words left. Normally I finish everything a week before and go into editing mode, but... meh. Every moment I can, I go around playing Delicious – Emily's Tea Garden and watching Yu Yu Hakusho whenever new vids're uploaded.
Crap. Why am I overloading on self-confidence?
...Use a bit of MUH-HUH-STARD!"
[woulda blogged yesterday, but laptop was being a bitch.]
Watched Rocky Horror LIVE yesterday (and didn't think of bringing my camera to actually just take photos of the stage and stuff, ugh), and...
I TOTALLY FREAKING LOVED IT!!!
Front row balcony, best seat ever. I could even see the band do their thing, which was totally, totally awesome. Honestly, I think I was the Chines–nay, ASIAN there. Everyone else was white, goth, punk, and/or old. Audience members were mostly middle-aged to old, as Rocky Horror has been around since the mid-70's.
They even included audience participation!! Well, sorta. About 15-20 minutes before the show started, they sent the dancers into the audience to stir things up. So the guy the balcony got had on fishnets, denim very-short-and-very-tight shorts, some kind of half tank-top thingy, and full-on tranny make-up. He proceeded to bend over quite a bit and cause a lot of discomfort among us females (which is very funny when it's not happening to you). After a while, he moved up to the back, where I think he kinda satleaned(?) on this old lady who, when I was looking, couldn't stop laughing.
When he came back down, he crossed our row from right to left, SLOWly. As I was on aisle left, he had to cross this middle-aged couple before me, the lady of which, poked/slapped/smacked his bum when the guy passed her (I don't know which, I was too busy laughing). Like, her husband was with her! Hahaha!
After he passed me, he was standing on the steps (elevated seating, facing the back row). I, on the other hand, was trying my bestest not to look at the guy, since staring is totally weird in my current situation. He was standing there for a while, so finally, I gave. I looked up at the guy.
He winked at me.
I totally giggled (he was kinda cute ;)), throwing in an "Oh my God" while doing so, while Mrs. Butt-Pincher next to me was laughing hers off as well.
I noticed the people downstairs weren't having much luck either. Since the dancers below had the stage, well, let's just say it's POSING TIME!!!
Then the show started!
Even though it was only two hours, they still had an intermission (the term meaning 'mad rush to the bathroom'). At the end of it, the band played a medley of the show's songs. So cool to see them play live.
Costume-wise, the show is much more different than the movie, with the Transylvanians dressed way more provocatively than their black-suited counterparts in the movie. Additional song lyrics (additional song as well, cut out from the movie), and dialogue and storyline is slightly different (to suit the stage, 'cuz the pool bit's kinda impossible to emulate on stage.)
One thing's for sure, though: Rocky Horror Live is very, VERY MUCH dirtier! During Don't Dream It, Be It, they unveiled a giant lifesized plastic penis (YA RLY!), after which it shot out CONFETTI. HEART-shaped confetti. At all of us! I was gawkinglaughing at the same time 'cuz that sure as hell wasn't in the movie! xD
I loved the end of the show. Usually after a show ends, the players come out, bow, bow a bit more, then leave. Well, in our instance, everyone was walking away, except for guy playing Riff-Raff. And he yells to the audience,
"Melbourne! Would you like to do... the TIME WARP AGAIN!!"
[The Time Warp is Rocky Horror's signature song.]
Everyone cheered like mad. It was a friggin' ENCORE!!
The band started up again, and the cast proceeded to do The Time Warp. They were totally encouraging the audience to stand up and dance along (it has steps). I didn't; it's one thing to make a fool out of yourself in front of your friends, and another thing to do so when you're by yourself. But I had a ton of fun singing along and watching them perform again.
And then it was finally over. Sigh. Next time when I have money and it comes, I'm gonna go again :D
[I think my mom's gonna kill me when she sees at the program I bought, she didn't really like the idea of me going to see the show :p]
I'm going to The Rocky Horror Show!!
Yesterday, I went traipsing around in the city BY MYSELF. IN BOOTS. HA HA HA. I went to check out the Comedy Theatre 'cuz I wanted to get tickets (well, ticket, yes I know, it's sad).
Me got front row balcony seat xD
Found the place, and spent $6.30 on a damn ham-and-cheese sandwich at the joint down the road, just 'cuz I didn't see that they charge a base price of $2.50 for the freaking bread alone. And it's just two slices, for eff's sake.
Anyway, today I just earned $35 (Aussie!) for sitting in front of the computer for an hour and assigning who should do some task or something. It's part of this research experiment run by this dude who's Head of School for Economics. The premise is there are 5 workers of group L and 3 of group C. Each of the workers (irrespective of letter) are either classified as passed (meaning that they're qualified for Task 1), uncertain (going either way) or failed ('nuff said). The 'uncertain' ones are the clincher, 'cuz you never know whether they may be qualified for the task or not (if they are, they're counted as pass points). They're pretty much the ones that influence your score.
Besides that, there is the base fee for just COMING, which is $15. That is for if their system crashes.
Still haven't updated myself on Heroes: Villains Chapter 3 yet. No one put a WMV file up =(
I'd go for the normal 350MB one, if it weren't for my laptop/Internet connection screwing with me right now. I really need to get that motherboard fixed.
Just saw Heroes: Villains Chapter 1 and 2 yesterday. Not bad, but to me, Heroes is beginning to look like Lost now, minus the foliage and the smoke monsters. But anyway, mutants are definitely way more cool than being stranded on an experimental project/island.
So anyway, Level 5 breaking out is probably the most interesting storyline string to happen, since they're gonna be hunted down and stuff. And you know what that means.
Cool CGI and people dying.
Pamela couldn't stop laughing when I told her that Sylar was related to the Petrelli brothers. Then she was like, "They have nothing else to write izzit? Are the writers Chinese or something?"
Epic. Own.
I gotta admit, that was a VERY good one. Anyone who's familiar with Hong Kong TV shows (not sure about China) knows that everyone is somehow connected/interrelated/literally related to each other, and that each episode will just keep dragging on for the most pointless reasons. So far, Heroes hasn't fallen into the latter trap yet, even though the storyline does get a bit tedious, sometimes.
*ahem*Season 2*ahem*
On the seventh minute, Russell Wong gets pulled apart by horses.
On the eighth minute, Michelle Yeoh is stabbed.
And on the ninth minute, Jet Li becomes a flowerpot.
[Nah, he gets encased in terracotta, which is red clay, hence, the flowerpot reference. Credit goes to Terry Pratchett's Interesting Times.]
When I read the initial release description for the movie, the words "shape-shifting mummy" gave me the impression that Jet Li'll go back and forth from looking undead during fights and stuff. Kinda like the flying toilet papermummy in Talos The Mummy, but minus the awful storyline and lack of famous people. And even though he was the bad guy, Jet Li (being Jet Li, of course) really didn't deserve to die after such a lame fight scene. The way they killed him was pretty good, though. His death was much better than Cate Blanchett's in Indiana Jones 4.
It being Jet Li, I was expecting an ass-load of fight scenes. Unfortunately, there isn't much. They saved what little of it for the end. Short sword-fight with Michelle Yeoh, short unarmed combat with Brendan Fraser... It's like, he's starring in the movie, but his kung-fu is just making a cameo. It's way much shorter than Venom's screen time, and that's saying something. Jet Li was SEVERELY (even more emphasis on the word) underused in this movie.
Then, we had a blatant and obvious attempt at fanservice in the form of Brendan Fraser with his shirt off. Not that I'm complaining. I was pleasantly surprised. I haven't seen that since George Of The Jungle. Teeheehee xD
There's this bit when Jet Li throws the magic knife at Brendan Fraser, and he jumps aside to dodge it, and I thought, whatever happened to Fraser's mad knife-catching skillzzz as demonstrated in The Mummy Returns. Ya know, near the beginning, in the mansion, this baddie throws a knife at Fraser and he just catches it and swings/hurls it back at the dude. That was awesome.
Anyway, the movie seems to focus more of his son Alex than anything *hellowhereisBrendanFraser*, and I've read that the next few Mummy movies will be revolving around Alex, with parents taking a back-seat kinda role.
Not that Luke Ford isn't eye-candy material, but... ugh. George Lucas, anyone? *rolls eyes*
Alex has an American accent in this one. Apparently, 13 years is long enough for you to lose all trace of YOUR ENGLISH ACCENT!!
Sorry to nitpick, but I'm a stickler for continuity. Don't get me started on the lack of Rachel WeiszEvie. Nothing wrong with Maria Bello, but original cast owns all. And besides, why couldn't they have gotten Freddie Boath to play Alex again? Six years is long enough for a fricken' growth spurt.
Ending was typically hilarious. Jonathan leaves China to go to Peru where, according to him, "there won't be any mummies". A post-script as Jonathan rides off in his cab states: "Soon after, mummies were found in Peru."
As interesting as the whole concept of China's first emperor returning as an undead bent on ruling the world (I thought that whole terracotta army thing was ingenious), the movie was kind of a letdown in my book. I miss Egypt. I miss the music. Bring back Imhotep, I say! Although I don't think he'd be too keen on it since he got spurned by Anucksunamun in the previous movie, and thus, wouldn't have much of a point in future instalments :P
And as usual, whenever Anthony Wong is in an English-language production, be it American or no, he plays a villain. Not THE villain, but A villain. Poor guy. Talk about being typecast.
Been wanting to blog for a bit now (whole lotta rants about movies and other craps), but my laptop's been screwing with me. I really gotta get that motherboard fixed.
So anyway, Heroes is BACK!! WHEEE~!! Can't wait to get downloading/streaming to watch the friggin' thing! Gosh, I'm totally psyched now! :p
My exam timetable came out yesterday, and both papers are on opposite ends. Literally. My first is on November 3rd (when the exam period starts), and my last is on November 13th (the last day of the exams). This means I have 10 days of pure, unadulterated gamingMath revisions! Buut... either way, I win. I love Math.
I have loads of opinions on a whole bunch of books I've read recently, plus one of The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. Will do that in uni or something.
Next month's to-do list: check out reviews on Max friggin' Payne!
During music class today, our lecturer played us Debussy's La Mer, which is French for "The Sea".
For some reason, listening to the first movement reminded me of the theme from Spider-man.
I'm just as clueless as you are on why that is.
The clarinet section of one of Ravel's Habenera-inspired work sounded a bit like the opening theme for Sneakers (fantastic hacker movie with ensemble cast and Robert Redford. Before he got craggy.).
This goes to show that I have the ability to confuse myself with every possible musical genre known to man.
Just woke up to the sound of furious teeth-brushing (my room is next to the bathroom), and thought it was tomorrow morning already.
Jumping out of bed and switching my cellphone on (was charging it), showed me that it was just 6.30.
PM.
Turns out I forgot that I was having an afternoon nap. The drawn curtains didn't help either.
I flew out of bed for nuffin'. Sob.
Submitted a 4000-word report this morning (luckily it was a group effort), because administration took so long to put the online submission boxes up. And to think that I woke up at 8.30am so that the silly thing wouldn't lag on me, since everyone will uploading their assignments today (last day, and having a copy of the paper online is compulsory, so everyone usually hands in the hard-copy once they've uploaded theirs online).
This Finance unit is an utter mess this time around. We can only access our respective notes for the week on the DAY of the lecture. Talk about last-minute. Like, helloo... some of us have classes all day without breaks in-between. Geez.
I'm reading through The Complete Idiot's Guide To Classical Music for my music research assignment. We're supposed to compare two successive music periods, in terms of tonality, texture, form, yadda yadda fricken' yadda, eck.. Even though the book says Classical Music, I checked the contents; they do cover Romantic music. So there. If I can put the book in as a reference, maybe I can make my lecturer laugh and get a sympatheticbetter mark.
I feel like doing History as another degree (my Mum says I should do Art History instead, as I suck in general history. Doesn't mean I don't like it, though) for some reason. Either that, or Math.
Mmmm... Math... *drools*
(I'm such a nerd.)
Mind you, this will have to be when I have oodles of money, which is highly close to naught.
Oh well.
Can't blame a person for dreaming.
While waiting for Stephen King's It to load (on YouTube, where else?), I was thumbing through the comments and found this gem (never mind the spelling; it's not the point):
Woooga2c (1 week ago)
COULROPHOBIA FEA OF CLOWNS JESUS Bozophoiba is something clueless people use
Bozophobia. Seeing that made my day xD
For the past four months or so, I've been entering a flash-fiction writing contest (aptly named The Flasher). I finally bagged one for July, a $30 voucher to Sofia's restaurant, where they give you seriously large helpings of stuff. More on that later, when I upload the little pics I took.
[I know it's September already, but it didn't occur to me to blog about it last month. And currently, I'm in the mood for some bragging and self-promotion. *blek*]
The theme in July was that we had to write a story based on any of the three pictures they gave us. The first one was a pet cemetary (Stephen King, anyone?) and the third was like a lab or some sort. Reminded me of submarines. Mine is the second picture (see below), and so, on with the story:
We walk.[I remembered the phrase wrong. It was William Blake's The Tyger. But if I put Spider-man, that's even more ridiculous. So the above is a variation of Blake.]
Yesterday, there was a mini-hubbub in our place (between Zhang Fan, Cathy and I) 'cuz this massive spider was on the wall near their side of the house. I found out because I was going to take a piss, and they called me to come-see. I would've taken a photo, only I forgot, because I was more worried about it scurrying under my door into my room. So I didn't take my eyes offa it.
But it was huge. Here is an artistic rendition of Mr. Spider:
[What? I never said it was good.]...having an apple, and hoping my lower gums don't slide into the base of my mouth because that apple is HARD! (Or super-crunchy, if you prefer.).
I am also typing this with one hand.
I just found out that The Rocky Horror Show will be touring here from mid-September. If I'd known that they'd be coming, I wouldn't have spent RM300+ on Wicked, as much as the plot had intrigued me.
Now, I've to find people to go with, because my Mom doesn't want me to go by myself, and I also have to bring Mom round to my side, because I made the mistake of telling her that the movie was a cult classic, and she doesn't dig the word 'cult'. Also, I've to save money 'cuz a ticket'll probably be $100+ as well.
[A TV-show era, if you will, 'least till I start GX.]
I just finished Yu-Gi-Oh! a few days ago (forgot to blog about it because the Internet/laptop was being cruel to me since then). Sniff. Now I'm gonna miss putting off episodes, teens doing nothing else but play card games, and watching people yell out their monsters' names when they launch attacks. I mean, they're just holograms (the monsters).
The show has about 220 episodes, all of which revolve around someone dueling with another person for something, either in a competition or to save the world or something. As Abridged Kaiba tells Yugi in YGO: The Abridged Movie, "The same way we solve all our problems on this show. By playing CHILDREN'S CARD GAMES!!"
Anyway, as silly as the premise might sound, I was seriously addicted to it. And now I've finished it. Sob.
I have no idea why I find a show about a bunch of teenagers/adults playing a children's card game so addictive. And now I can't watch The Big Bang Theory, because our landlady's tracking our Internet usage, and streaming is like downloading as well, so it sucks. And since we're sharing the bandwith with the next house, Internet = slownesh.
I went to watch Wicked yesterday with Sophia. For the unitiated, Wicked is a stage musical show chronicling the life of the Wicked Witch of the West from her point of view (yes, the one from Oz!).
This is my first time watching a show of this kind, so needless to say, I was acting a little bit 38 during the whole time, gawking at the set. The extent of my 38-ness also includes me thinking that everyone was leaving during the intermission, because a whole bunch of people stood up and walked out of the theatre. I know now that they were just going to the bathroom (because there was a long line when I went.). I took a photo (I'll upload it later), but only one, since I thought that the ushers would take my camera away or something. I found out later that they would just ask you to KEEP IT. Crap.
So, on with the about-show. It paints the Elphaba, the Wicked Witch in a far much better light, saying that she was a victim of circumstance (propaganda, more like), and that she wasn't really bad to begin with.
She wasn't really bad to end with, anyway.
To be honest... I. Loved. It. Period. The songs aren't bad, but the storyline is fantastic.
I was OhMyGod-ing all the way through Act II, which ties in with Dorothy's coming to Oz, and the origins of her three comrades. It also shows how the flying monkeys came to be, how the Wicked Witch of the East got her infamous Ruby Slippers, and how her death by Barn-Falling was no accident. And don't forget, who Elphaba's real father is (because her parents are both white, she is green).
And... HAPPY ENDING! She didn't die. She manages to reunite with her lover, and they both run off.
Thuh End.
Tickets were $113 a pop, and Sophia and I manage to get the last two seats in the show because someone returned their tickets. Anyway, yay for us!
I'm back to watching Yu-Gi-Oh! again, since I spent the whole of Monday (or is it Sunday?) watching YGO!: Capsule Monsters. It wasn't as bad as LittleKuriboh put it to be (in his Abridged Cr@psule Monsters 2, he said, "Previously, on crap..."). CM2 wasn't as funny as CM1, but I loved the Army of Darkness reference. And that bit about the invisible bicycle.
On a different note entirely, I've finished my Math assignment! Yay! And I finished it one-week-plus before the due date. Which is the 4th. Yay again.
Now on with my Finance assignment! The one with a thousand-odd words! And I can sum the entire thing up in THREE WORDS:
Damn, I'm screwed.
Just finished watching The Nutcracker Prince, a movie I saw a long, long time ago, and stumbled on again yesterday, when I was looking for Twelve Months (found the Spanish dub, but I want the English one, it's nicer).
I remember that actress voicing Clara was Megan Follows, but I was shocked to find out that Kiefer Sutherland voiced the Nutcracker. Like, Jack BAUER?!! I mean, his voice is quite low, I'd remember if the Nutcracker sounded like a grown-up dude (because the Nutcracker's supposed to be 14 years old.). But watching this again, if I didn't know it was Sutherland, I never would have guessed.
Sniff, sniff. Is feeling nostalgic now :p
Found The Princess And The Goblin! And Thumbelina!! MY Thumbelina!! Ohmigosh, I'm on a roll! xD
Now I have to find Jack And The Beanstalk (Gene Kelly!), Twelve Months (of course), Tooth Fairy, Where Are You?, and this cartoon where they jumble up all the fairytales or something, the title of which I can't recall. Damn.
[Yes, I know it's way early. But I'm really excited about the movies next year.]
I wanted to do this a few days earlier, but then the ants were holding court. This, by no way, is arranged by date of release, but instead, on the ones that I want to see the most. Will include/update with/correct release dates, when known.
1) Watchmen (6.3.09)
Look at the date! 6 + 3 = 9! zOMG!
Just spent the whole of last night reading the series (12 issues). Gripping storyline, plus Rorschach = Major pwnage. And the trailer looked really awesome.
2) Transformers 2: The Revenge of the Fallen(!!!!) (26.6.09)
Star Trek was initially Number Two, but this just in!! Aieeeeeee!
3) Star Trek (8.5.09)
I'm not a huge Trekkie fan (The Next Generation is pretty much the only spin-off I can stomach, probably 'cuz I saw it before I knew of the word 'spin-off'), but I am interested in seeing Zachary Quinto pull off Spock. Maybe he'll telekinetically slice someone's head off in the movie, although that's very much an unlikelylong shot.
4) The Spirit
Directed by Frank Miller. Think of it as Sin City with color. And like that movie, I'll be watching it just for the visuals.
5) Inkheart (9.1.09)
9 x 1 = 9! WOW! [I really have to stop doing this.]
'Cuz the trailer looked awesome. And Brendan Fraser.
6) Angels and Demons (15.5.09)
This book was way, way, way better than The Da Vinci Code, and therefore, must be read, read, read. Let's see how this translates on-screen, 'cuz TDVC: The Movie was a disappointment.
7) Erm... Dragonball? (8.4.09)
For fun. And to check out how big everyone's hair will be.
Falsely alarmed when I saw Avatar, but it's the James Cameron one, not the awesome one about element-benders. For those who haven't heard the great news yet, Avatar: The Last Airbender (in some places, The Legend of Aang) is about to get its own live-action trilogy, one for each book (season). The only slight (depends on how you look at it) downside is that the movies will be directed by M. Night Shyamalan, who's pretty much been criticized since Unbreakable (and even then, the movie got quite some flak. I thought it was okay.).
So, for the past four months or so, I've been living in a dump (because I'm really lazy in cleaning up, and getting around in my room requires me to circumnavigate around shoes, luggage, prone plastic bags, laundry bag, coke bottles, and other such-likes.
Because my desk is cluttered as it is, I put my opened packet of Tim-Tams on my food area.
That's when the ants came.
As per title, the Tim-Tams are my undoing.
Took me a half hour to compose myself and touch all the food items (and I mean, ALL) that the ants have or probably have gone over, another hour putting them in plastic bags (luckily they were lying in abundance all over the room, so they were quite far away from the ants and I could use them), another hour bringing the trash down from my room, two more hours spent on pouring detergent all over the infested area, wiping away the ants, and flinging globs of detergen on the wall (especially at the hole where the ding-dongs came from), and another hour taping up the crevices where I think the bloody ants are coming out from. Which wasn't easy, since they seemed to be coming out from the built-in inactive radiator/air-conditioner thingy in my room. I miss you, flat surfaces.
Because of this bloody incident, I must.... KEEP CLEAN!! *GASP!* Well, at least for a while, so that the ants don't come back. So no more leaving food items on the floor, no more leaving pots/bowl, etc. unwashed till I got less lazy, and no more leaving finished food wrappers and stuff in the room until I finally remember to throw them out.
As of now, I have yet to wipe the shelves of the soap yet. My mom says I should keep it like that for a while, which is totally fine by me, since I don't think I'll be stocking up on food anytime soon. Only thing is, the fumes from detergen's kinda making me ill.
I should really clean the wall, though; soap's left white marks and I've to tell the landlady about the ant-hole.
[Oh, and I'm boycotting Tim-Tams now.]
So on Saturday, we went up to Mt. Buller, this ski resort thingy. It was LOADS OF FUN!! Got some pictures of the scenery below (I don't really dig putting pics of myself on the Net). Like the idiot I was, I didn't bring gloves (I didn't even bring it from back home) because the thought never really crossed my mind.
We were supposed to take the 5am tram down to the city, where we THEN take the 6.30am tour bus up to the mountains. Unlike my friends who slept during the entire 4-5 hour drive up, I, for the life of me, couldn't sleep, I don't think it was because I was too excited or something. Basically the entire bus ride was pretty much crap, as I get motion sickness really easily, and wearing all those extra layers didn't really make me feel more comfortable. I envy Sophia; on our ride up the windy roads, she dozed all the way. Sigh.
[Pics later, 'cuz my stupid connection's being an eff-tard at the moment.]
Anyway, we reached the top at about 11am, and there was SNOW!! IT WAS SO COOL!! (no pun intended). And there was ice everywhere, and I was trying not to slip and fall on my bum. So we took the chairlifts up, six of us meaning three on each lift, and our first ride up (Esther, Sophia and I) we didn't put on that bar-thingy in front of us because we didn't know (Sophia and I found out the second time we sat on the lift with Wei Lynn). It was quite intense. I wonder what would've happened if one of my sneakers dropped onto the heads of one of the people below. High-ho Sneaker, AWAY!!
After reaching one of the peaks, we started throwing snowballs at each other. I played for a while, before my hands hurt from the cold winds and I had to shove them back in my pockets. We went back down for lunch, and we came back up again to traverse the slopy, snowy terrain (yes, I think I can actually USE the word 'traverse', since we walked really, REALLY far to get to the snowtube area). It didn't help that I couldn't put my hands out to keep my balance, since the ice was really slippery, but I managed to trudge along till we reached the chairlifts on the other side.
The snowtubes, weren't really much. Basically, you just sit in this oversized round swimming-type float, and they spin you down this slightly slopy area. I got disoriented. My friends were still playing around with that, since it did cost $20, and since Sophia's feet started aching ('cuzza the cold), we went down to this café by the second set of lifts. Even when we were still in the warm, we could still see our breaths in vapors. It was so AWESOME!!
After they were done, we went on the second set, back to the bus area, because they leave at 4.10pm. The second one was quite scary; I was sitting on the right-hand side of the bench, and it felt like it slightly tipping over to my side. Halfway they stopped (I think to get some other people on or something), and we were hovering over this HUGE drop. It was kinda funny 'cuz Wei Lynn wouldn't stop screaming. But anyway, it didn't really help with the wind blowing snow in our direction, and in my eyes. The whole side of my bag was covered with snow.
Lucky for us, it didn't start raining till we got on the bus. With my pink wintercoat, I still looked like an oversized candy treat. Haha.
So it was another five hours till we finally got back to Box Hill. I slept for like a bloody half hour (not of my own accord, of course), and for the rest of the trip, I've to put up with this little Chinese girl talking to her seatmate about herself and High School Musical. (I think she went on for about an hour or so). Wei Lynn started to imitate her after a while; I didn't really notice till I noticed she wasn't talking normally. I know it's mean, but I couldn't help but laugh.
The little girl went on to talk about Sharpay and Gabrielle, which was a bit annoying, since she kept saying "Lava STRINGS. LAVA! LAVA!!" to her seatmate (I'm guessing it's Lava SPRINGS, since the girl mentioned that Sharpay's parents owned it or something, I'unno. I don't really watch teenage crap.). I couldn't help sniggering, and Sophia said, "If you listen to her long enough, you'll soon talk like her." Which is quite true, actually. Hahaha.
All in all, we spent about $110 each, including meals (I spent a bit more than that because I bought Recharge), and we were joking around saying that one of Aaron's could pay for ALL six of us (because Aaron and his housemates went for like, two-three days starting Friday, and it's costing them $600+ a pop.).
But jokes aside, we found out that Lih Yii fractured her pelvic bone while on the trip yesterday (they were supposed to return last evening). As of yesterday, she's still warded up in the mountains (apparently, it's like a mini-town with hospitals and universities. Yes. Universities.), and will be until they deem her well enough to be moved to a better hospital or something. Luckily she has Aaron and some of the others with her; company and moral support are good in a time like this. Hope she gets well soon ^^
[For the heck of it, the one in my room, and the ones along the highway. And it's also a Friday night.]
Recovering from Monday's sudden spurt of productivity, I have been sitting around doing absolutely nothing but watching Yu-Gi-Oh! on YouTube, loading and re-loading The Big Bang Theory (thanks for recommendation Hui Ming!) on YouKu, and playing computer games.
I have not touched my assignment(s) since then.
Thanks to the lack of inactivity in terms of 'loading' on YouKu, I now have 100 episodes of YGO! left. I've been watching bits and partial episodes of TBBT, and even though I haven't amassed enough of the show's jokes and punchlines, I still say that the discussion on the science of Superman, where Lois Lane should've been cut into three pieces when she falls into (or through?) Superman's arms, takes the cake.
Speaking of Superman, I read on Perezzers that they might be bringing in Johnny Depp to be the Riddler in Rebooted-Batman 3. Having Jim Carrey's cheeky grinning mug forciblyfirmly etched (I'm not saying that this is a bad thing, though) in my mind, I can't really imagine Depp being the Riddler. The Penguin might also pay a visit as well, and although Philip Seymour Hoffman isn't a bad choice, he really isn't short enough.
[BRING BACK DANNY DEVITO!!]
(Although, his take on Penguin is Burton-ish, the style of which I feel that the new franchise is trying to erase. The Joker, anybody?)
Being productive at the moment (being night, I tend to watch YouTube, or eat, or do both), but right now, I'm working on my first assignment! Which is due on the 14th, so just as well.
Feeling rather bored now, since the Internet is being crap, and YouTube isn't loading for me. I have like, 150+ or something episodes of Yu-Gi-Oh! left. I think it will take me all semester.
Unfortunately, my only pair does not fall into the above category.
I decided to wear my heeled boots to campus earlier today for the heck of it, and right now, I'm sitting in front of my laptop, nursing my big fat toe. The left one. I didn't stub it or anything; I blame it on the way I walk in those boots. Grazed it, I guess, I don't really know how to describe it.
The only major accomplishment wearing those boots today (and no, GETTING my huge-ass feet and tree-trunk calves into aforementioned boots is not that) is that I ran across the road in them, and I did not fall flat on my face. With cars coming down on the other side, and I ran. Whee.
Never again, though.
Trouncing around campus in them (well, it FELT like trouncing), I took elevators, and avoided as many fixtures with steps (read: stairs) altogether. I almost tripped myself walking down the stairs because the elevator wasn't working, but I managed to redeem myself just a little by staring straight ahead, and pretending it never happened.
That guy next to me didn't have much luck with that. Could still feel his eyes in my direction as I made my way to the vending machine.
In a nutshell, my first week pretty much sucked arse. Which probably isn't doing any good with my blood pressure. If I had any.
Tuesday:
Went to class wearing my mom's winter jacket. It being very thick and pink made me look like an oversized candy treat (that is PINK!), and did nothing to enhance my credibility and/or outward fashion sense, whatsoever. (But it probably told people that I have an affinity for pink, which I don't. Not by choice, anyway.).
Also, I had to trudge all the way up to the end of the campus, because the stupid Faculty of Business and Law building HAD to be isolated from the rest of the campus for some bloody inane reason (since the beginning of the year, actually), and the fact that I couldn't get the zip up for my bloody Marshmallow, and keep my hood on my head because of the bloody strong winds, meant that I got rather wet during the rain.
Afterwards, Sophia and I had to run across the huge, um, walkway, because I had gotten my classrooms mixed up, and thought that LT6 was where we were supposed to be. It was actually LT1.
Movie Night wasn't bad, though. I got to see how camp Jack Nicholson was as The Joker. Teehee.
Wednesday:
I had free blue candy floss while trudging up to the silly Business/Law building again, which meant that I had plenty of time to dirty the entire lower-half of my face, and color my teeth blue. I spent like, 15 minutes in the bathroom, trying to get the blue out (which is very difficult using just fingers and water), because I had to talk to people about the bloody work permit. Why don't those buggers ever accept cash? What d'you think we were capable of, counterfeiting the bloody damn things?
Thursday:
I was late for my Music class (which I did not mean to, but maybe the people started early. Just maybe.), and then I'd found out that I'm not exactly allowed to take keyboard, but instead, the GUITAR! Now, given the right prod and push, I wouldn't mind trying something new, but, as with every paper, I would be GRADED ON IT!! And since my results from the previous semester has basically high-kicked and launched my hopes for a bloody fucking 80 grade average out of the fucking window, well, at the moment I'm trying to strive for the highest grade possible, i.e. a high 70+ average.
I know JACK about the guitar, I've never held, or even so much as breathed on one before, and Performance Tests are 30%. Yes. 30. Bloody. Effing. Percent. I borrowed the elementary guitar textbook from the library, and although they do kinda spell things out, I'm not sure I can get my fingers to actually do the fricken' chords. I mean, memorizing is one thing, but getting your fingers to actually work with the strumming thingamajiggies and whatnot... For me, it's not a matter of practice, it's just the issue of wrapping my thick head around the mechanics of playing the damn thing, which is not easy. Right now, I'm stuck with either the guitar, or continuing with the keyboard. Both ways, I'm pretty much screwed. The lecturer knows I've done Grade 8, so I'm not entirely sure that she wouldn't set high standards when she's marking me for the Performance Tests.
Stupid electives. What a bloody tangled web I've woven, indeed.
[And that's just the ones with classes. Don't get me started on the rest.]
[Meant to post this earlier, but the Internet was sucking ass, so I forgot. Till now.]
Bought tickets half an hour before showtime, WITH very good seats, by the way. (Actually, any seat that does not belong to the first five rows from the front is quite good for me. Although, I strive to get seats from the third row from the back up.).
*spoilers*
The mob's panicking like mad, since Batman came on the scene, like, in Batman Begins, so they reluctantly LET (I say 'let' because they didn't really have a choice anyway) The Joker use his own psychotic style in dealing with Batman. Throw in a scarred and seriously pissed off DA (his girlfriend died during the course of the film) and you have the movie.
The Joker didn't die; he was arrested. I think the people making the movie wanted to bring Heath Ledger back for the following movie (if any), but his sudden death early this year pretty much puts that in the dump. Maybe they'll get a replacement. I sure hope not; Ledger was surprisingly good as The Joker, more towards the demented and ruthless version in the comic books rather than Jack Nicholson's rather whimsical take on it. Not like Nicholson wasn't good, but between Jokers, Ledger's could seriously own Nicholson's ass.
As carried away as I was in the major, major hype for the movie (most of the hype being on Ledger), I was also interested in seeing Harvey Dent, pre-Two-Face. Unlike in The Phantom Of The Opera, where the guy was supposed to be seriously ugly (but in fact, looked minorly burnt) Dent's Second-Face looked like it did in the old animated series (really, really messed up), which was fantastic, excepting the fact that it wasn't blue. My only gripe is that Two-Face died in this one; it would've been more fun to see him in the next one as well. Then he could team up with the rumoured Riddler, just like in Batman Forever.
Comparing this movie with the first, this one was definitely better in terms of being a super-hero movie. I know a lot of people loved the first one (probably because of the character development, yaddayaddayadda etc.) but I found it boring. The only bit I didn't see coming was Liam Neeson being Ken Watanabe. I loved every minute of The Dark Knight; I kept my hands in front of my eyes for some of the scenes with/involving The Joker ('cuz I'm a wuss that way), but action-wise, WAAAAYYY more than the first movie. Love the bit near the end when he's fighting the SWAT team and trying to protect the hostages who've been dressed up as The Joker's men. That whole sonar(?) thingy was awesome. I didn't expect Rachel Dawes to kick it, though.
I went to watch it with my mom, and she was complaining about Christian Bale's voice being all gruff and stuff when he's being Batman. I kept telling her it's 'cuz he wants to hide his voice, and she said, "Michael Keaton and Val Kilmer didn't have to hide their voice."
-_-"
["How about a magic trick?"]
In this second instalment of the Evil Dead franchise, dear ol' Ash gets splashed on with EVEN more blood than in the previous movie, plus some in a few different colors.
The beginning is a recap of sorts, with Ash going to the cabin in the woods with his girlfriend, sans the three other people from the first movie. Girlfriend gets taken out, Ash leaves, and the thing bounds through the forest and attacks a screaming Ash...
From then on, the movie proper starts.
*spoilers*
Turns out, the demons are only effective at night. Ash gets possessed, but the breaking dawn kicks the demon out of Ash, and Ash is alright again. He tries to drive out to the bridge, but it's been destroyed, both opposite ends twisted inwards towards land.
Elsewhere, this girl, Annie and her boyfriend are also heading towards possessed cabin. Turns out that she's the daughter of the Professor who had lived in that cabin, the one that translated the Book and read out the incantations that brought the demons back. As of then, she doesn't know that her parents are already dead. Since the bridge is down, two hillbillies take them on an alternative trail to the cabin, which means, an extension down the buffet line for the demons.
Ash's hand gets possessed, so he chops it off with the chainsaw in the woodshed. (Later on we get to see how he fashions the thing so he can fit it over his stump of a hand.). After a misunderstanding between the new batch of people and Ash, Ash gets locked in the basement with Annie's (un–)dead mother, played by Raimi-movie staple, Ted Raimi.
After the usual demon-possession, chopping of limbs, and dying of peoples, the Professor's ghostly shade comes and tells of a few other passages that, when read together, will lead to a physical manifestation of the demonic thingies, and they'd get sucked into a time rift.
All things go as planned, with the exception of everyone BUT Ash dying, but the time rift also sucks Ash in as well, and he lands in the Middle Ages, circa 1300AD.
What happens then? That's the basis for the next movie: Army Of Darkness.
Unlike the first movie, which focused solely on horror, Evil Dead 2 has a few subtly-funny moments, one of which is the bit where Ash's possessed hand is running around (since Ash chopped it off), gets caught in a mousetrap nearby, and when Ash laughs at it, the hand flips him off.
As usual, the blood, may it be from person, demon, or orifice (teehee!), spews out from what is referred to as paip bocor (kudos to Wee Nee for coming up with that phrase ages ago).
Like that bit when the guy gets dragged into the trapdoor by Annie's zombie mom. You wouldn't have thought that a human body could hold that much blood.
The Evil Dead is the first of the famous Evil Dead series, ending with the fabulous Army Of Darkness, one of my favourite movies of all time. It's considered by many as a horror cult classic, probably 'cuz of all the gore and disgusting-ness.
To be honest, I only saw three quarters of the movie, having missed the second half of Disc 1 (because it stopped loading mid-way), and, not wanting to refresh the screen and reload the whole damn thing again, I moved on to Disc 2. But anyway, here goes:
*spoilers*
It starts with five college kids going into this cabin in the woods and finding the Book of the Dead. After playing a tape containing a narration regarding aforementioned book, plus a few read-out incantations from said book (on the tape), shit finally happens.
Our hero and sole survivor is Ash, played by Bruce Campbell, who, in this movie, isn't as cool and awesome as he is in Army Of Darkness. His friend, sister, girlfriend, and other female friend get taken out in the end, having been turned into the undead, along with spewing white stuff and that eventual pea soup-porridge combo oozing out from his male friend after Ash burns the Book, thereby killing all the undead. I think there was about 10-15 minutes devoted to all the zombies becoming, well, deader, and like, they started disintegrating(?), but not any less icky (surprisingly), which ended with Ash getting about 10 gallons of blood onto his face (because his friends were kinda exploding. 'Kinda', 'cuz there wasn't a boom.).
Evil Dead ends with the camera zooming through the woods, through the house up till the front, and then attacking a turning-and-screaming Ash as he was walking to his car. Great ending, including the, um, rather inappropriate music accompanying the end credits. Inappropriate, because it was cute. Quite vintage-y, in fact.
Gore-wise, there was a lot. There's this bit when Ash was burying his girlfriend (that he didn't chop up 'cuz he didn't have the heart to), and she climbs out of the as-of-yet unburied grave and claws (hard!) at his leg like it was a scratching post. I was half-expecting to see deep furrows in his calves, but if there were, he'd die and just turn into one of THEM. So, no.
Not watching the second half of Disc 1 meant that I missed out on the infamous 'tree-rape' scene, where one of the girls was suggestively heavily-violated by branches and such. Yes. 'Tree-rape' does not mean 'man molesting poor tree', but instead, 'tree molesting poor girl'.
When I'm feeling a little less lazy, I'll load the show again.
As per usual, I've chosen the last possible minute to catch up on a LOT of things, including my movie-watching (of which I've barely covered half), emailing the uni about the applying-for-work-permit thingy, panicking because Discovering Music B isn't showing up alongside Introduction To Mathematical Modelling ('cuz of the silly clash) in my timetable area, emailing the people in-charge regarding this, getting nagged on by my mom because she doesn't want me to skip lectures and such, and THIS(!) is not counting the PACKING(!!) that I still have to do.
Also, I have to do my shopping, because I still want that skirt, and that trenchcoat (all subject to price, of course), pencil lead, Finance textbook (still thinking about it, because either way, my bag will still weigh 15kg, all of which I will have to lug UP the stairs to my room), and a whole bunch of other crap that I want, only I can't DO said shopping yet, because my results will be out this Thursday, and since Shopping = Enjoying Self/Splurging, it would lead to many other messes, possibly culminating in extreme disappointment and massive heartache and pissed-offiness (not including an overload on the nagging) come Thursday.
Hence ends rant for Monday.
Like any other animated feature, Kung Fu Panda certainly has its laughs, and cute animals along the way.
*spoilers*
In a nutshell, it's about this unlikely panda ('unlikely', 'cuz he's a panda) who becomes skilled in kung fu in a very short while to defeat Tai Lung, a snow leopard(?), who's out to acquire the scroll that would make him the Dragon Warrior. Shifu (the aptly-named Kung Fu master) is initially VERY doubtful, but since HIS master Oogway (a tortoise) proclaimed Po (aforementioned panda) to be the Dragon Warrior, Shifu sets out to train Po against all odds.
It was surprising to see gwai los make a movie that's, well, very close to home in terms of Chinese culture. In fact, there was just an article in the papers the other day that questioned how was it that the Chinese weren't the ones that made the movie. But I digress.
I love the ending, though. After defeating Tai Lung, Po rushes up to Shifu, who was beaten down quite a bit during his fight with Tai Lung, and Shifu tells Po that Po has brought peace to the Valley, and also to Shifu himself, since Shifu was Tai Lung's master, and had loved him like a son (Shifu is a red panda. And Po's father is a goose. Hahaha.), before closing his eyes, and seemingly, dies. Po then yells for Shifu to wake up, of which Shifu opens his eyes and hollers back, "I'M NOT DYING, YOU IDIOT–I mean... Dragon Warrior."
For some inane reason, I've the tendency to catch colds when the weather's really, really hot. Like in March, when it was still hot (although it'd been raining for those few days), and right now, when it's like, 30–31˚C in the afternoon. My nose has been running and pissing me off for days.
I saw Spider-man 3 again on TV yesterday, and it reminded me how silly the whole thing was. Venom didn't EVEN come out till 30 minutes before the movie ended, and when he did, he DIDN'T even take on Spidey first before teaming up with Sandman. I'd read somewhere that Sam Raimi initially wanted to focus on Sandman as the SOLE villain, and then threw in Venom because of studio pressure ('cuz everyone likes Venom. Including yours truly.). I mean, it was still salvageable if the stupid butler hadn't told Harry that "your father died by his own hand." Honestly, wait until two years past before letting out this IMPORTANT PIECE OF INFORMATION?!!
HowItShouldHaveEnded summed it up perfectly: "I took a grenade to the FACE, DUDE!!"
Then I watched Plots With A View. I love that movie. I don't think I'll ever tire of it. Subtle comedy at its best. And plus, Christopher Walken is always fun to watch.
Now I've to wait till the 19th to watch Perfume: A Story Of A Murderer, because it showed yesterday at 11.40pm, and my mom was nagging at me to go to bed already. I guess I'll watch it online (if I can find it), 'cuz the government closing down torrent sites hosted in Malaysia scared the heebie-jeebies out of me. TV does censorship, sometime.
Oh, and Meet The Spartans was a good laugh. Stupid, but it DID have its moments.
[OMG, what's wrong with my apostrophe-ing?!]
I watch three movies (and then some) while flying back on the 30th. Here's what I thought of them:
Vantage Point
Vantage Point's this movie about the US President being assassinated moments after this summit had started. The movie rewinds 23 minutes before the event, and looks at it from the eight people's point of view. Watching the movie, I only got five.
Now, I can take Dennis Quaid single-handedly take down the terrorists and rescuing the President (because he's probably done it before in some other movie). Hell, I can even take Forest Whitaker STOP said terrorists with his magical camcorder. But what I CAN'T stomach is the fact that the leader of said terrorist faction actually SWERVED to avoid a LITTLE GIRL that ran out onto the streets crying for her mommy. I mean, these are TERRORISTS, for Pete's sake!! Running over the little girl shouldn't be a problem, it's called COLLATERAL DAMAGE!
Other than the rather lousy ending, I thought the movie was terrific. A few great twists, and I love how they went back and looked at event from everybody's point of view.
The Other Boleyn Girl
I don't profess to be a fan of political movies, although if they DO come my way, and I've nothing else to watch, then I'll sit through it with no complaint. Having missed the first 15 minutes of the show (even watching through it the second time around), I thought the movie was good. It was interesting to see how Natalie Portman (playing the infamous Anne Boleyn) played off her sister, who bore Henry VIII's male heir, and got Henry VIII to marry Anne instead (hence, the separation from the Roman Catholics, the beheadings etc. The rest is history). Anne must've been kicking herself; all her children with Henry were girls.
Jumper
Jumper was a huge disappointment, for me. Too much talking, not enough Jumping. The only time when it all looked cool was when Hayden Christensen and Jamie Bell were Jumping here and there and all around because Hayden had taken Jamie's remote control thingy, and Jamie wanted it back. Besides looking cool, in my opinion, that bit was rather pointless. Jump with Sam L. Jackson, for crying out loud!
I also watched a little bit of Enchanted and Horton Hears a Who!, but I can't really comment on those because I didn't watch the full things.
['Cuz I'm lazy to double-post.]
Iron Man
I. Love. Iron Man. It wasn't so much of a comedic action movie, rather, a comedy with action. Not that I'm complaining. I haven't laughed so hard since I rewatched Army Of Darkness. Robert Downey Jr. is priceless as Tony Stark, and, quoting American Idol (because I'm lame that way), he made Stark his own. I'll change the last half of that previous sentence once I come up with something good, but honestly, I can't imagine anybody else being Stark. I always had the impression that Tony Stark is this rather stiff dude who looked a bit Chinese. But then again, I'm not very exposed to the Iron Man comics, only in some of the crossovers that he's in. *cough*Marvel Zombies*cough*
And I finally saw that after-credits scene! On this Chinese website. Leave it to the white people at Paramount who can't read Chinese. Teehee. Speaking of which, I can't read Chinese either. Ha! And I'm yellow.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Indy 4 was pretty fun, although it doesn't match Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (in my opinion, nothing will, actually). The aliens were what got to me. The whole franchise revolves around archaeology, and ancient things. Yes, I know they're playing on real-life speculation that the reason the Mayans were way advanced compared to the rest of the other ancient civilizations was not due to innovation and all that crap, but because of extraterrestrials, but really, aliens? And the fact that the UFO in the end was actually LOOKED like a UFO. You can't even call it 'an alien spacecraft'. This from the guy who gave us Star Wars. I mean, just because the movie referenced Roswell in the beginning doesn't mean that ALL alien spacecrafts have to be smoothly metallic and plate-shaped. Russian Cate Blanchett DID mention that they might be cousins. Give us some variety, will ya?
And I've heard that the crystal skulls looked like plastic. Seeing it first-hand now, I thought they were very un-like plastic. Is it me, or did the Crystal Skull look like a reject prop from the Alien movies? During the part the whole bunch of them were looking up at the cave wall, I was half-expecting a face-hugger to jump out and attah itself to John Hurt's face. Which would've been ironic, since John Hurt was the first to die in Alien.
The way Cate Blanchett died wasn't satisfying enough. Her eyes caught on fire and she just disintegrated. I mean, in Raiders of the Lost Ark, the Nazis' faces melted. Nightmares for weeks! And in Temple of Doom, there was that whole heart-ripping she-bang, and something with the stones, and the bad guy fell and was eaten by crocodiles. And in The Last Crusade, the rather middle-aged dude instantly aged and rotted away, and the whole place fell apart (not immediately after, though). And I miss the Nazis.
Oh, another quibble: Henry Jones, Sr. Yes, saying that he died is a great way to cover the fact that the great Sean Connery is not in the movie, but have they forgotten about The Last Crusade? Correct me if I'm wrong here, but didn't Henry Sr. drink from the Holy Grail, i.e. the Cup that gives everlasting life? Yes, the water from the Cup was poured onto his wounds, that's why he didn't die from the gunshot, but he also DRANK from the thing afterward. So tell me, why on earth is he dead in the current movie??
The good stuff now: It was quite funny actually, and the bit LaBeouf threw a rat snake to Harrison Ford so that they could pull him out of the dry sand pit (like quicksand, except no mud, or something) was hilarious. For the uninitiated, Indiana Jones hates snakes. And his father hates rats. Haha. And it was quite fun to watch John Hurt acting senile for most of the movie. But he was alright again after they replaced the skull up on its skeletal, um, yeah, skeleton.
I've actually read somewhere that George Lucas said that he could imagine Shia LaBeouf being the lead in subsequent Indy movies, relegating Harrison Ford to the father-figure role, much like Sean Connery in The Last Crusade. Nothing against LaBeouf, but if that actually happens, I'm boycotting the franchise.
[In unrelated news: Luke Ford might be taking over in the future Mummy movies. Oh no!]
('Cuz, as usual, nothing coming to mind now.)
My Internet connection had stopped working on Tuesday. Yes! Ever so conveniently it did, during study break.
And you know what the worst part was?
EVERYBODY ELSE'S CONNECTIONS WERE WORKING! Only mine and Zhan Fan's wasn't, and that's only two people out of the other six people still in the house! W. T. F?!
For the past week, I've been hogging part of Ying Ying's bandwith, since she's ever so nice to come bang on my door whenever she's not using it, let me go to her room, plug the cable into my laptop, and use her connection to check my mail and stuff.
