Short review of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

I’m a big Transformers fan. The first show wasn’t as good as I expected, but at least it lives up to my childhood. After another 3 years in waiting, the sequel is finally here! And it is worth the long queue and the uncomfortable sits (TGV cinema not recommended…).

TF2 packs a lot of punch in terms of action sequence. It’s like the director has in mind that ‘the story isn’t going to stand out anyway, so just put more chase sequence and explosion then’. Indeed, it works well.

It has very brief story telling and most of it was glanced through quickly with few dialogues. New audience will have hard time understand it, but for us fans, it was well explained. However, some of the transformers (Ironhide, Rachet, Arcee, Sideswipe etc) didn’t have much character development or even dialogue.

Fans will be happy to see Optimus Prime having more action this time. I was even surprise that they include Pretenders, Soundwave, Ravage, Constructacons etc. Maybe they should include Headmasters in the next sequel. The detail CGI presentation also makes the character more lively.

Well, some of the robot killings are pretty brutal so parental guidance is advised =) If you are looking for intense action and lots of explosion, this is the show to recommend.

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Donut Craze - Krispy Kreme Donuts

I'm not a big donut fan but due to the ‘Donut Craze’ in Malaysia I was dragged (willingly) into this phenomenon.

The latest hype is the newly opened Krispy Kreme Donuts. People were queuing like mad on the first few weeks of its launch. You know KLites lar, everything also curious, small accident at road side also need to stop by and look see, in the end say its non of their business, but caused huge traffic jams.

Went to Berjaya Time Square with Ruth on Saturday and we stopped by Krispy Kreme for breakfast. She once queued quite long to get the donuts but this time seems not much people. Some staffs even had time to approach us and explain about the promotional items. I was like, ummm ummm, ok ok… buy 1 dozen you save RM6.00, umm, ok ok… got new peanut butter donuts, wow… ok ok… In the end we only ordered two donuts and a cup of drink, so the promotion doesn’t really help…

I wasn’t too surprised that there’s less crowd after 1 month operation. The sweetness might not favor Malaysian liking. My family and friends find Krispy Kreme donuts too sweet compared to JCO and Big Apple. The price point wasn’t that attractive also, as they are selling at RM2.80 per donuts and RM2.50 if you order a dozen. In JCO and Big Apple you can get one for as low as RM2.00.

New York Cheesecake

For me, my favorite is the New York Cheesecake and Cappuccino donuts. However, I’m joining marathon soon so this ‘sin food’ is best avoid at all cost. I’m also competing with my sisters to see who will reign the biggest loser :D.

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Look Mum, No Controller!

3 years ago, Nintendo blew us away with it’s innovative Wii remote. It is selling like hot cakes because it redefines casual gaming to a whole new level.

This year, we have Sony who comes up with a ‘two stick’ controller, which I think it’s really out of date. Then we have Microsoft announcing its new interactive gadget, the Project Natal, which combines motion capture and voice recognition to the gaming world.

Motion capture is not something new, the Playstation Eyetoy already did that, but in mere 2D space. The painting and ricochet demo they’ve shown looks creative but nothing new to me. What impressed me is the ‘future demo’ where you get to interact with an AI kid and the environment in 3D. They also showed off some cool games like racing, fighting and skate boarding, without the use of controller. Able to select the on screen menu by flipping your hand looks futuristically cool, like in the Matrix or Minority Report.

However, I’m still optimistic on how they are going to pull it off perfectly, as we know that ‘Microsoft does not get things right until version 3’. Guess I still prefer sitting on my comfortable sofa with my controller rather then jumping here and there in front of the TV. Yes I’m a little too old for that…

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A bottle & 2 cups of coffee

A forwarded mail that my friend sent to me.

During the philosophy class today, the professor stood on the platform without saying a word. He took out an empty mayonnaise bottle and a bag of golf balls.

He filled all the golf balls into the empty mayonnaise bottle. He then asked the students if they would agree that the empty bottle was now full.

The students of course agreed.

After that, the professor took out a cup of small cobblestones from under the table and he slowly poured them into the bottle while shaking it. Soon, the cobblestones filled up all the gap in between the golf balls.

Then, the professor asked the students again if they would agree that the bottle was full?

The students said yes.

Again, the professor took out a cup of fine sand from under the table.

Following the same method, by pouring while shaking the bottle, he filled up the small gap in between the cobblestone with the fine sands.

Professor: “Is the bottle really full now?"

Students: " Yes, it should be full. No more gaps".

Just as the students thought it was over, the professor brought out two cups of coffee from under the table and he slowly poured all the coffee from the cups into the bottle until not a single drop was left.

After pouring the coffee, the professor smiled at the students and said, “Now the bottle is truly full".

The students laughed together with the professor.

Then the professor started his lecture.

"Do you know what I am trying to teach you with my demonstration today?"

"I am using this mayonnaise bottle to tell you a philosophy of life"

"This empty mayonnaise bottle represents our life"

"Golf balls are the major things in our life, such as God, family, children, friends, health and love.

It doesn't matter that life is without those cobblestones and fine sands. But if our life is without the major things above, it will be meaningless.

The small cobblestones will be like "the other things" in our life such as job, house, car, etc.

As for the fine sands, they are just like the small little things in our life, those trivial matters which are not important.

If I began my show by putting the fine sands into the empty mayonnaise bottle first, there would not be any space for golf balls and the cobblestones.

In the same way, if I were to fill the cobblestones in first, there would be no space for the golf balls either.

Just like our life, if you spent all your precious time on those trivial matters, you wouldn't have time to do the important things.

Therefore, we should spend more time on the things which are related to our happiness.

Be with our children more often.
Spend more time for parents, grandparents and other family members.
Pay attention to our health.
Do not worry about the unfinished household chores.
Do not worry about rooms that have not been cleaned up.
Do not worry about not tending the garden.

There will be time for us to do these things.

Give more thoughts to those major and important things in life!

There is only one life.

Life will only be meaningful if we are clear about the importance and priority of things in life.

A student raised up his hand at this point of time

"Professor, what about the two cups of coffee? Do they mean anything?"

"I am glad that you ask the question", answered the professor.

The message from the two cups of coffee for us are,

No matter how full our mayonnaise bottle seems to be, we will always have time for coffee with our friends.

It seems that we are always busy as though the 24 hours we have are not enough.

If you still think that way, please remember the story of the empty mayonnaise bottle and two cups of coffee.

Japanese Karee Rice - Agefuku

Despite having more and more new Japanese restaurants and outlets opening, Japanese curry rice in Malaysia still wasn’t that popular. I’ve been to a few outlets and ordered curry rice, but the taste and quality disappoints me. Maybe Malaysians don’t really enjoy having curry rice that are not spicy compared to the local nasi kandar. Or maybe curry rice just sound like food that you will have it in jail.

So behold, Agefuku Japanese restaurant, which has been sitting near my workplace (Taipan USJ 10) for years without me noticing it. There are two sections; the top floor serves ala cart and buffet, while the ground floor serves the so call ‘Japanese Fried Delight’, or Japanese Fast food. While many would fancy the buffet on the top floor (due to the Japanese Buffet trend in Klang Valley), I find the fast food section more interesting. For some reason, we were happy to see the word ‘non-halal’. In Malaysia, very few Japanese restaurant would dare take the risk to serve pork in their menu, so kudos to Agefuku. And yes, pork plays an important role in Japanese food.

We tried the Japanese curry (Karee) rice with fried pork cutlet, and I can tell you that this is the best Japanese curry rice I have ever had in Malaysia. The meat is tender and juicy, the portion of rice is just nice, and the best part is the curry sauce, which is the exact taste I had in Japan (thick, sweet and a little spicy). It satisfies my taste bud every time I pay a visit.

Lately there is a promotion on certain items which cost only RM 3 for a main course. I am a little worried because such promotion could hint that the business is not doing very well. RM 3 for ramen or teriyaki chicken rice is certainly a loss making move, as the average meal there cost about RM 10. I have experience in a restaurant where they are doing RM 2 breakfast buffet. What we get is bread, butter, fried rice and some fried noodles. The restaurant closed after 1 week… So the lesson here is not to undervalue your product.

I hope this bold move will not jeopardize the restaurant. I believe there’s an opportunity to grow and to build up their reputation. They already have good food, good location, and they are the only Japanese fast food player in the region. So please gambateh and 生き続ける! (stay alive…)

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Best Found Media – BFM 89.9

Long have I waited for such radio station to arrive. Most of the radio channels I listened in Malaysia have been either crappy or meaningless. Although some were entertaining, some DJs went overboard, playing fool on the listeners, and spitting jokes that are lame.

In BFM, not only you get the latest news headline every half an hour, there are tons of interviews with businessmen/women and entrepreneurs. Though I think that the interviewers could still improve in their questioning, the interviews are inspiring and motivating, especially in the morning when you stuck in the traffic jam going to work.

For those who are not staying in the Klang Valley, you can still tune in online here. You can even download Podcast in mp3 format for previous interviews that you have missed. Now that’s Best For Malaysians.

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My Movie Journal - Footprints 2004 Director's Cut Part 1

Continuing my movie journal on Footprints...

Part 1

Ricky falls into coma and dreamt about his childhood. He was bullied and upset. He feels that life has no meaning and hope that the car has ran over him.

The scene was shot outside the church and it was during winter. We want to make the Tai Lou (Darren) like terminator with dark glasses, gloves and tight leather suits. His bodyguard, Bao Pei and San Kai has to act fit while loosely dressed, like ‘Gu Wak Zai’. The scene where the body guard came out from Tai Lou was shot countless times because we just can’t stop laughing… and Gary had quite a scare during the car scene.

Casts:
Gary as Ricky
Darren as Tai Lou
James as Bao Pei
Ka Kit as San Kai

For your information,
- The name of the two gangsters, Bao Pei and San Kai was reference to a Hong Kong gangster film.
- Ricky’s last name, Conner, was reference to The Terminator movie’s John Conner.
- Bao Pei and San Kai have to act tough although the weather was cold during shooting time…
- It was my bag that they were throwing around…
- The Renault was Daniel’s car.

Stay tune for part 2 of my movie journal.

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Street Fighter II Special Moves – What they say, and what we thought it sounds like…

Street Fighter, one of the best fighting games ever created, has come a long way since the 90’s. Back in my primary school days, Street Fighter II has revolutionized the arcade industry, creating a trend no one has ever seen before. Though we are not very good in playing it, we do enjoy watching people play. Its like watching a free performance or competition.

In school, we learn the fighting strategies and discuss special moves like it was part of the education. It was also exciting to hear people shouting out ‘hadoken’ here and there, though we have no idea what it means and whether the sound is accurate or not (gaming sound technology was not so advance that time). But it was cool, and we make it sound a little ‘Hokkien’, hehe…

Here is the list of what we thought the special moves sound like in the good old days…

Ryu/Ken


What they say - Hadoken
What we thought - Ah Buuu… Ken


What they say - Shoryuken
What we thought - Ooo… Liu Ken


What they say - Tatsumaki Senpukyaku(Hurricane Kick)
What we thought - Ah Type Type Bull Ken

Chun Li

What they say - Spinning Bird Kick
What we thought - Cintan Kick (Mee?)

Guile

What they say - Sonic Boom
What we thought - Ah Lek Ku (This is the best!)

The most accurate sound?

Dhalsim’s Yoga Fire!

Please share your thoughts.

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Earth Hour

Yah everyone's talking about the Earth Hour. Will you switch off the lights for the sake of saving energy? Or just another trend to follow? Is it really helpful?

Please vote on the side and comment on what you think about this event.

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My Movie Journal - Footprints 2004 Director's Cut Prologue

Photo/Video editing is one of my personal hobbies during University years. It was the time where digital camera’s and camcorders started to become relevant and popular. I bought my first digital camera back in 2000. It is a Fujifilm Finepix with 2.1 Megapixels. It was very old fashioned and bulky but at that time it was king. The N73 I’m currently carrying has higher pixels then this.

I bought a Panasonic camcorder 2 years later. It was an analog camcorder using tape, but able to transfer to pc by converting it into digital signal. It wasn’t too much of a hassle trying to upload the videos into your pc, but you have to get ready a bigger hard disk for it…

The direct transfer of 10 minutes video takes a whooping 1 GB off my then only 40 Gb laptop. It takes a lot of trial and error before I could figure out how to choose the video format that gives the best video quality with minimal capacity.

I would normally take video shoots when I’m on vacation or special occasions like church camp and parties. I will then edit it by cutting out the non relevant parts and inserting some music to make it less boring. After that I would burn it into a cd/dvd and store it in my ‘memory lane’.

Never in my entire life would I think of making and directing a movie/ drama. I’ve done some photo editing and video slide shows before, but not to an extend of this.

The idea of a video project came out from Jessie, our Sheffield Chinese Christian Church recreation committee. She had an idea of filming a story about a boy’s life journey towards knowing and accepting Christ. She came out with a script instantaneously. There were 5 to 6 scenes in total, some were taken off, some added in later. The casting was done rather quickly without questions ask, as most of church brothers and sisters are willing to participate.

So the final decision is up to me - whether I am able to direct, film and produce the video.

I was scratching my head on such a long script. First off, I haven’t done such filming and directing in my life before. Second, the current video software I used had a lot of tendency to hang and crash during editing. Third, the editing software wasn’t as flexible to cater for such filming requirements.

Anyway, we started with a ‘one-off’ approach, i.e. film first, edit later. While the filming was ongoing, I was able to test on new and available software. And yes, during the progress, I did manage to find more user-friendly and stable video editing software.

The filming wasn’t easy also, as some of the script was either ‘unfilmable’, or it doesn’t come together well enough. Most of the time, filming session becomes brainstorming session because a lot of suggestions and ideas were proposed last minute.

Nevertheless, we are having a good time doing this project. Although I did make some mistakes, I really appreciate the patience and support given by brothers and sisters, and God up most high.

So why the title Footprints? At start the title is actually ‘no title’. I can’t really remember how it comes about, I think it was a title I saw on a Christian album CD covers. As our story is about a life journey of a boy, guided by God, I think Footprints is very well representing the title of our project.

Prologue

It started off as a prologue stage show before the video comes in. We plan to start and end with a stage performance because it will bring a so call ‘life’ to the show. Here is where Ricky, the main cast was introduced, together with his family and his attempt to commit suicide, and was sent to hospital under coma.

Casts:
Gary as Ricky
Algene as Ricky’s Sister
Ruth as Ricky’s Mother
Yichuan as Ricky’s Father
Sam as Doctor Sam

For your information,
- The ‘Sleeping Pill’ is actually Fish Oil supplements.
- The doctor is really a doctor, and a humorous one.
- Beep sound was actually Nokia hand phone message beep, repeat at countless time.
- They forgot to remove their name tags…

Stay tune for part 2 of my movie journal.

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