Property Problems

Last weekend I went by the construction site where the apartment that I bought was suppose to be built and to my surprise there was no progress since I last saw the place in December. I’m now really worried about what is happening with this project. I have not received any letters about any construction delays from the developers and I’m really in the dark about what is going to happen with the property. The developer’s site office was closed the day I passed by so I didn’t get a chance to ask anyone about it.

According to the original sales and purchase agreement, the apartment was supposed to be completed by March 2006. Till now the only thing that I’ve seen completed is the piling work for the foundation of the building. In my first meeting with the developers, I was told that the construction work was delayed due to some of the building approvals being tied up with the local city council. When I saw them the second time, they say that they were facing some labor shortages due to the majority of their workers were migrant Indonesian workers who got sent back home after their work permit expired. I have no idea what excuse I will be hearing out to explain the delay in the construction work.

I guess I count myself still lucky as the bank has not release any payment from my housing loan to them yet or else I would have to start paying the interest on the loan for an apartment that is not even completed. Still I have about RM 13K tied into the property to date and I’m really tempted to call the developer up to get my money back by canceling my agreement with them. I saw another property for sale near my current place that is a much better investment compared to what I have now. I’m really tempted to take up that offer instead as I’m really fed up with the current developer company.

I wonder how long I have to wait before I can get my money back if I do that.

Malaysian Idol 02-07, Airdate: 03/07/2005 – Workshop #1 Results Show

(Image courtesy of malaysianidol.bluehyppo.com)

Nick’s Pick : Faizull, Atilia & Lisa

I missed a few minutes of the start of the show but I don’t think that I missed much other than the recap clips for last Friday’s show. For the first workshop predictions, the judges picked them as follows :

Roslan’s picks : Atilia, Faizull, Xerra
Jee’s picks : Atilia, Faizull, Fauzi or Xerra
Paul’s picks: Atilia, Faizull, Lisa or Xerra

Before announcing the results, the contestants were interviewed about their reactions/chances after last Friday’s show. Nothing really memorable came out from these short interviews so I didn’t really bothered to note them down. It was interesting however to hear that Paul was still talking about the importance of having the “package” in order to be successful on Malaysian Idol. While I have to admit that I would agree with him to a point but Atilia put it best that there are professionals out there who can help in the looks department. Talent would be a more important measure for success because it’s either you have it and show it in the Friday shows or you don’t that will separate the winners from the wannabes.

I’ve pretty much called the first 2 contestants to move on to the Spectacular rounds. Both Atilia and Faizull showed great potential and won voters over with their polished and confident performance. Xerra’s selection to move on to the next round definitely is not based on last Friday’s performance as she was nothing less than dismal in her last outing. I will not speculate if her looks/package was the tie-breaker to get her through but instead I would rather think that the potential that she showed in the weeks before was enough to convince voters that she deserves another chance. I would rather that she comes back in the wild card rounds so she can prove herself properly.

I think that Paul Moss also shares this view as he was very animated when asked if he agreed with the voter’s choices. He flat out pointed out that Xerra didn’t do a good enough job to merit a place for the next round this week and that there are better singers who performed better than her who were not chosen. I think that he had more to say but was cut off by Cheryl mid sentence. I don’t think that the hosts ever did something like that before on the show last year. I wonder if this would be some thing that would be happening more often this year.

Final results : Atilia, Faizull, Xerra
Nick’s prediction success : 2/3

Movie Review - War of the Worlds

(Image courtesy of Dreamworks & Paramount Pictures )

“Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us.”
– Narrator, “War of the Worlds"

In 1898, H.G. Wells first published the story of “The War of the World” which is arguably the first novel ever written about an alien invasion. This hugely successful novel was later adapted by a young Orson Wells into the historical 1938 radio broadcast that was so detailed in execution that many of it’s listeners believed what they were hearing was actually happening to them. Film, TV shows and stage adaptations will later follow to further solidify this wonderful work of fiction into the minds of the general population. In the latest adaptation of this classic tale, Steven Spielberg’s “War of the Worlds” not only strengthen that position but raised the bar by creating a visual and thrilling ride that follows closest to the original vision that H.G. Wells had 107 years ago.

In the movie “War of the Worlds”, Spielberg transports the unfolding events from rural Victorian England to the late 21st century eastern seaboard of the United States. His main protagonist of the story is Ray Ferrier, a blue collared divorcee deadbeat father of two children, who is suddenly thrust into a situations that is beyond his control when outworldly beings activates long buried and dormant killing machines as a precursor to an invasion from outer space. As the 100 feet towering mechanical tripods rained death in the form of disintegrator rays from above, Ray and his brood, the precocious Rachel and rebellious Robbie, struggle to be together as they flee the murderous aliens swath of destructions in hopes of reuniting the family with his ex-wife in Boston.

Their journey takes them through scenes of utter horror and devastations as all efforts to repel the seemingly omnipotent invaders failed in spectacular fashions. The family also face the darkest of human natures when they are surrounded by desperate refugees at the end of their frayed nerves. As without also within, the family unit itself is torn apart by heighten emotions and rebellion. With all forces allayed around him, Ray struggles to forge ahead to keep his promise to his ex-wife that he would look after the children for her. In the end, Ray successfully keeps his promise and along the way grows into the role of a more responsible father.

As Ray Ferrier, Tom Cruise masterfully portrayed the character as being cocky, aloof towards his children and painfully self-absorbed father who has been avoiding his responsibilities in the beginning who as the story unfolds has to learn how to be a father and learn it fast as he takes his children cross-country to be with their mother. Cruise’s interaction with Dakota Fanning who plays Ray’s daughter Rachel is a wonderful study of flip flopping role reversal between the two characters. They play out wonderfully against each other in more that in several occasion as their characters tries to coax the other into a sense of security when the world seems to crumble around them. It is with Rachel that we see Ray’s character growing into a better father. In one humanizing scene, Ray struggles to find a lullaby to comfort his daughter and failing but uses a song he knows instead. To see these two actors in action was truly a joy.

The dynamics between Ray and his rebellious son Robbie, played by an almost unknown Justin Chatwin, is the polar opposite of his relationship with his daughter. In each step both father and son are at loggerheads with each other that they could only work together in an uneasy truce to assure the daughter that they could get through the horrors surrounding them. Chatwin does a satisfactory job portraying the hurt and resentful son but unfortunately was given a weak material to play from. It was hard to fathom his character’s insistence to go and fight the aliens when it seemed all but hopeless even if it meant leaving his sister with a father he does not trust. There were several times that it was hard to find a redeeming trait for this character as he choose to remain isolated not only to his family but also to the viewers who have little to go on in understanding his motivations.

In their cross country flight, they encounter a chatty but creepy survivalist named Harlan, who was played by Tim Robbins, as they tried to hide from the aliens. In the most claustrophobic scenes in the movies the three people spar against each other for survival as Ray realizes that preceding events have left Harlan unhinged and fast becoming a menace to his own survival. I didn’t think that Robbins had much to play from as the character that he was given felt fairly one dimensional and hardly contributed much to the story other than to show the extant that Cruise’s character would go to protect his children and even what that eventually entails is left ambiguous typical of Spielberg’s distaste of the dark side.

The last remaining big character of the movie itself is the aliens themselves. These are definitely not the kindly cousins of the cute and benevolent aliens of “E.T.” or “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”. These aliens are ruthless and merciless warmongers literally out for blood. Unlike the book, we are not told where these aliens come from but it is inferred that they have been here before to bury their killing tripods in the ground to stay dormant until activated. The aliens invade without rhyme and reason that the humans can comprehend . When they are not vaporizing the terrified humans around them, they are picking them up from ground level like little morsels of food. They pick on the humans only to harvest their blood that they spray back to the ground for no apparent reason. The audience are not shown what the aliens really look like outside of their killing machines until 87 minutes into the movie and they look as gruesome and alien as we can imagine. Thankfully we don’t get a subtitled transcript of their conversations since the audience is better left in the dark as for their motivation.

The star of this movie has to be Steven Spielberg himself for masterfully creating a thrilling and suspenseful escape sequences as the main characters find themselves fleeing from the murderous aliens. In the post September 11th world, Spielberg taps into the shared experience to show the impact of the devastations. From the moment Ray sees the 100 feet killing machines near his own back yard, the audience is engaged in a pulse pounding road trip punctuated by scenes of the family trying to keep it together between the lulls of the chase. The challenge of this movie is to show how catastrophic an alien invasion might be and Spielberg delivers the goods in spades. The physical devastations and the high body count escalates as the movie progresses. Two of the most memorable scenes of the alien destructions for me was the aftermath of the plane crash and the burning runaway train roaring in front of the refugees as they waited for it to pass so they can continue their journey. Viewers familiar with his body of work would also recognize some call backs to his earlier movies like “Jaws” and “Jurassic Park”.

Although Spielberg continue to shy away from the dark side of his imagination like he did in “A.I. Artificial Intelligence”, “War of the Worlds” is an easy movie to recommend to people to put on their must watch list. Exciting escape sequence amidst apocalyptical events coupled with the story of how a father tries to hold his family together makes for worthy viewing.

Malaysian Idol 02-06, Airdate: 01/07/2005 – Workshop #1

(Image courtesy of malaysianidol.bluehyppo.com)

After thousands of auditions over 4 cities, they selected 122 contestants to go to the theater eliminations rounds to whittle down the number to 24 semi-finalist competing in the Workshop rounds. The first workshop round tonight had 8 semi-finalist competing against each other to secure a place out of 3 going into the extravaganza rounds. A change from last year’s workshop rounds, all contestants would be accompanied by a live band on stage which for some would be to their advantage and for some not so much.

Before I continue this write up, I must take a sidebar to touch on the recent controversy regarding the decision to cut Lee Kar Wei, an early fan favorite, from the Top 24 contestants. Browsing through the Malaysian Idols forum at the official website at Bluehyppo.com it is apparent that fan reaction to her elimination is quite vocal and intense. Many feel that she is more deserving of a place on the Top 24 than some of the people who made it there. The reaction was such that even Paul Moss himself came forth to address the fans on the issue on his official discussion forum and 8TV even invited LKW back for a TV appearance to show that she was ok with the decision. Although I will always defer to the judges for their decisions, I personally feel that all this spin doctoring still does not cover the fact that they made a mistake with this one elimination. I still think that she had potential, determination and the appealing personality to make for good watching on the show. However what’s done is done and we as fans of the show will just have to make do with the ones left behind.

On to the show.

Malaysian Idol won’t be a part of the global Idol series if it didn’t have its share of filler segments. I just hope that MI won’t end up with segments like what they had on American Idol with the Ford sponsor segments. The filler segment tonight showed how the 8 contestants prepared for the show tonight. All definitely had a chance to rehearse their songs and even had a dance coach to teach them some moves. With all the preparations that they go through, they would only have themselves to blame if they do not perform to the best of their abilities on stage tonight. As another plus, the songs that will be sung by these contestants in the workshop rounds would be chosen by the contestants themselves so that should help them a lot to be more comfortable on stage.

Being the first workshop of the season, the judges were asked what are they hoping to see from the contestants this year. Roslan Aziz started out with stating that he is placing high expectations to the contestants based on the quality that he has seen. Jee pointed out that in addition to Roslan said that there is definitely more potential in the contestants this year and she was looking forward to see it on stage. When asked about the determining factor for the contestants, Paul Moss replied that only those who really step up and bring their game on in the competition will have a chance to shine. All in all the judges are waiting to see a higher level of competition that would hopefully surpass last year’s show.

Before continuing on with the individual contestant write-ups, I have to say that because they don’t list down the title of the song that the contestants are singing I had to guess more than a few of them. While I definitely know some of the more popular tunes, some of the songs especially the local songs had me guessing their titles so if I get them wrong please send feedback to correct me. Good thing I don’t this full time for a living.

(Update : Kudos to Yokatta, wildorchid and Cilipadi from the BlueHyppo Malaysian Idol Official Discussion Forum for the corrected song and original artist list)

Norsila - "Kaulah Segalanya" by Ruth Sahanaya

I have a feeling that she was very nervous at being the first person to start off the show tonight as I could hardly hear her at first. I'm not sure if she realized that she was a bit out of step with the band for most of the song. She was also uneven in terms of tone with most of the power notes being shouted out more than controlled. In this instance being loud is not good as she has little control of how it came out. It also felt that she was rushing through her performance.

It’s ironic that this song started the show off because to me it further underscores the fact that LKW would have and already did it better than this contestant.

Nick’s verdict : 6/10

Shone - "I Could Not Ask For More" by Edwin McCain

He started off the song very badly and never really recovered from it. There were points in his performance that it seemed that he swallowed his voice and at other points it came out quite pitchy. My notes had listed him as having a monotonous range and not much stamina to power up the notes that this song demanded of him. I didn’t sense that he was really feeling the song even though it was one that he chose himself.

Nick’s verdict: 5/10

Faizull – “Penunggu” by Sweet Charity

Loud, booming voice who as Paul put it woke everyone up after the 2 boring performance proceeding it. He was definitely in his comfort zone singing a Malay heavy metal rock song which is clearly one of his favorites based on how confidently he performed it. I had deep reservations about this contestant the first time I heard him but tonight I finally understood what drew Paul to his singing in the first place. He definitely has a refreshing tone to his voice and the power to back it up. The challenge for this contestant is to see if he would be equally successful in other genres especially if it involves singing in English. Regardless of what people say, my perception of Malaysian Idol is someone who can sing the best in both English and Malay. Without either one then the winner would just represent half of the population.

I’m going to implement an “Orang Kampung” count starting tonight. It’s like a drinking game if you’re inclined to imbibe alcohol while watching MI (which by the way would greatly make some of the performance more bearable) but instead of doing shots every time someone says “Orang Kampung”, I just going to add to the running tally. It may not be as much fun but hopefully it would help the others who are actually doing shots to keep track.

Nick’s verdict: 8/10
“Orang Kampung” count: 4

Atilia - "Natural Woman" by Aretha Franklin

I thought that she had a very smooth honeyed voice and good tone that reminded me of the old school divas and jazz greats. There is a deep quality to her voice with definite power behind each notes. Her performance was polished, confident and matured. It would be interesting to see if she could go further and if the voting public would be accepting of her talents.

Nick’s verdict: 8/10

Fauzi - "Angel" by Jon Secada

He had the worst arrangement of a song of all the contestants tonight. His chosen song ended up being just a verse being repeated twice. While it did allow him to showcase his clear tone and strong projection voice, it didn’t show much of his range or the fullest of his potential. There were some pitch problems here and there but it is hard to tell with what little we had to go on. Of all the contestants, his performance was the hardest to call for certain.

Nick’s verdict: 6/10

Lisa – “Ku Tak Sanggup” by Kris Dayanti

I felt that she had a pleasant and clear voice that was a joy to listen to. She started out very good but seemed to peter out towards the end. She also had some breathing problems that could be better improved by building up her stamina. There is potential here and if she moves on she would have to fully exploit the help that she can get on the show to realize that potential.

Nick’s verdict: 7/10

Fauzi – “Rela Ku Pujuk” by Spider

The first thing that cross my mind is this was a Zamani clone. Roslan Aziz hit the button correctly by calling him a “Tam from Spider”, who originally did the song, clone. It was a confident performance which definitely comes from him being in his comfort zone. Like Faizull who sang earlier, the challenge for him is if he can be as comfortable when singing songs from other genres. A passable performance that felt like him doing his best impression of Zamani.

Nick’s verdict: 6/10

Xerra - "Cahaya" by Kris Dayanti

The biggest disappointment of the night for me. After all the hype and her good showing in the previous rounds, I was expecting more out of her just based on her experience of performing in front of a crowd from her previous singing gigs. I’m not sure if it's because she choose the wrong song or if she folded under pressure but her performance tonight was very pitchy and uneven. I would have rather see her kick it up a notch and belt out a Tina Turner song with attitude. A very disappointing showing despite her total package.

Nick’s verdict: 5/10

There was a comment from Paul on tonight’s show that can be interpreted that voter’s would go more for looks rather than talent. While I admit that there are some out there who could never look further than a big set of ya-yas, I felt insulted that he doesn't think that the rest of us can vote someone regardless of how they looked. My personal view is that it all boils down to how you market the talent. With the right marketing plan, even a wedding singer can be the idol of the masses. With the right type of talent and a good marketing plan, a total package wouldn’t have to be the only criteria to be successful.

To sum up, tonight’s show had very few memorable moments and doesn’t starts the season with a bang. Hopefully the contestants will get better in the following weeks. I have a feeing that Faizull will have a strong voting base to continue and that Atila could get through as well based on her strong performance. For the final spot to advance, I’m torn between Fauzi and Lisa but if I had to choose based on their performances tonight I have to go with Lisa as I got to hear more of her potential than Fauzi.

Nick’s Pick : Faizull, Atilia & Lisa

Result show will be on Sunday 3/7/2005 at 10pm at 8TV.

Job Well Done

We wrapped up the audits 1 day earlier than scheduled today. The auditors were satisfied with all the evidence we provided and with the exception of 2 very minor findings that they highlighted, our team passed the audits with flying colors. I am so relieved that all the hard work paid off.

I decided to celebrate by treating myself to a nice dinner in KLCC. Of course being hopelessly single, I had only a table for one for dinner. Sad innit? Good thing that the food at the restaurant was too die for and really made up for having to enjoy it alone.

On the way home, I stopped at Low Yat Plaza to pick up another DVD season set. I’ve been really looking forward to get this new set to add to my collection. To my dismay when I come back and popped the disk in my DVD player, no pictures come out. Guess thats what I get for buying pirated copies but I have no complains from my previous experience so hopefully this would be just a fluke copy. Seems like that I have to go back and get it exchanged with another copy.

Good thing that I managed to get my boss to approve my day-off tomorrow :)

Small Steps

Halfway through the process audits today. Most of the interviews that I arranged for the auditors with our system admins have been completed and they (the auditors) seem to be satisfied with what they have heard up to this point which is a relief for me. I’ve been working my butt off these past 3 months to make sure that every thing goes smoothly for this audit hoping that the management would finally acknowledge the hard work I put in to ensure that they don’t get a write up in one of these yearly audits. I’ve been the go to guy to help prepare the team for the audits for the past few years that I might as well get credit for it instead of quietly filing it under things to do.

So I just have 2 more days with the auditors and then I would be able to put this behind me until the next round of audits. Truthfully that it not entirely true as I do need to continue monitoring the process compliance to make sure that when the next audit rolls around, we would have evidence of continuous improvement and adherence to the process. As if I don’t already have enough to do with what I am suppose to do at work.

In other news (heh), I’ve decided to add a collection of links to my secondary and tertiary alma mater on my blog. I’ve always been very reluctant to put items of a personal nature on this blog for obvious reasons but I thought that I try this out and see how it feels to be a bit more vulnerable on the Net. This small measure of a step is actually both thrilling and frightening at the same time. It’s risky and so out of character for me, the quintessential risk-avoider, that I can’t help but wonder if this is some sort of a plaintive cry for attention/discovery.

What would I actually do if confronted with someone who could recognize me from my blog despite me using a nom de plume?

Feeling Under the Weather

I really hate the start of the flu season.

My eyes tear up almost constantly, my nose gets stuffed up constantly and the back of my throat has the consistency of sandpaper. I’m walking around with either a constant pounding headache or that woozy feeling for self medicating with cold medicines. I get really cranky every time I get sick and these past few days are no different. I wished that I could take a day off from work to recover but because of the audits that I have to organize this week, all my leave days are frozen until next week.

It’s sucks to be sick

Malaysian Idol 02-05, Airdate: 24/6/2005 – Theater Eliminations

(Image courtesy of malaysianidol.bluehyppo.com)

I missed this episode so there will be no write up for it this week.

I had to go back to my parents place and missed that Friday evening and missed a huge chunk of the show. I also missed the Sunday repeat as my brother was hogging the TV to watch a movie on HBO. I did managed to get bits and pieces of the show but not enough to do any reasonable write up to it.

They have put up the 24 semi-finalist contestants photos on the official Malaysia Idol website and I must say that except for a few, I don’t think that I’ve seen a lot of them performing in the past shows. There are a few listed that for the life of me I have no idea how they got through. I very surprised and disappointed that Kar Wei who tried again this year did not get through the theater eliminations. I thought that she was better than some of the people chosen to the 24 semi-finalist.

I will be reserving my judgments on the 24 semi-finalist who I thought to be most undeserving to be in for the next 4 episodes. This time around, I would be able to refer them individually by name and it works better to snark on them personally.

Let the games begin.

Funny Way To Do Business

A few days back, my mobile phone service provider sent me a letter informing me that my current mobile post-paid plan has been converted to a minutes plan. Basically what this means is that I would have to pay a fixed amount of ringgit every month for a fixed block of minutes and SMS text messages. Any extra call minutes or SMS that I use above the specific package will be charged accordingly. So now instead of paying a monthly service fee, everything I pay now goes towards my total call minutes and SMS text quotas. My kindly mobile phone company even calculated my average mobile phone bill based on my bills for the past 4 months. From the average, they have recommended me to take the 480 minutes plan with 50 free SMS texts.

“Recommended” is not actually accurate in this case. They basically switched me over to the 480 minutes plan based on the monthly average that they calculated which by the way included the service fee that I had to pay each month. If the people who actually come up with the calculation were to really look at my monthly bill they would surely find that I hardly use more than 30 minutes of calls each month. In fact, my SMS text total is usually 5 times more than my call total. If I stayed with the 480 minutes package that they assigned to me, I could have potentially wasted 450 minutes every month if I didn’t decide to change to a different plan. Instead of making their subscribers go through the hassle of changing to another plan from what they provider automatically assign to them they should have asked the subscriber to choose their own preferred plan in the first place. Imagine the number of calls to the customer service hotline they could have avoided had they did this instead of assigning the plan without the subscriber’s input.

On the bright side, I didn’t run into too many problems trying to switch my current minutes plan to another that has much less call minutes assigned to the block. It took me only a few minutes and a few questions to verify my identity to change my current plan that would give me a savings of RM50 per month on my mobile phone bill. The only downside to this new plan that I choose is that I get less free SMS texts compared to my recommended plan. I wished that the mobile service provider would allow unused call minutes to be converted to SMS text but according to the customer service person I talked to that day this was not part of the plan. Still the low cost for each additional SMS text and the RM50 savings that I’m getting from this plan makes this choice acceptable.

Stop Me If You’ve Heard This Before

The American Film Institute release a Top 100 most memorable movie quotes today and listed below are the top 25 quotes.

1. "Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn." Gone with the Wind, 1939
   
2. "I'm going to make him an offer he can't refuse." The Godfather, 1972


3. "You don't understand! I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I could've been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am." On the Waterfront, 1954


4. "Toto, I've got a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore." The Wizard of Oz, 1939


5. "Here's looking at you, kid." Casablanca, 1942


6. "Go ahead, make my day." Sudden Impact, 1983


7. "All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up." Sunset Boulevard., 1950


8. "May the Force be with you." Star Wars, 1977


9. "Fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy night." All About Eve, 1950


10. "You talking to me?" Taxi Driver, 1976


11. "What we've got here is failure to communicate." Cool Hand Luke, 1967


12. "I love the smell of napalm in the morning." Apocalypse Now, 1979


13. "Love means never having to say you're sorry." Love Story, 1970


14. "The stuff that dreams are made of." The Maltese Falcon, 1941


15. "E.T. phone home." E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, 1982


16. "They call me Mister Tibbs!" In the Heat of the Night, 1967


17. "Rosebud." Citizen Kane, 1941


18. "Made it, Ma! Top of the world!" White Heat, 1949


19. "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!" Network, 1976


20. "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship." Casablanca, 1942


21. "A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti." The Silence of the Lambs, 1991


22. "Bond. James Bond." Dr. No, 1962


23. "There's no place like home." The Wizard of Oz, 1939


24. "I am big! It's the pictures that got small." Sunset Boulevard, 1950


25. "Show me the money!" Jerry Maguire, 1996

I don’t know if I should be proud or a bit freaked out that I’ve seen a majority of these movies and some of them even more that 20 times at that.

Stormy Clouds of Depression

I have body image issues.

I hate so much how I look in the mirror that some days I just have to forcible stop myself from breaking every mirror in the house. No matter how much I try to ignore it, I hate how my face is too wide and my nose is too flat. I hate how my lips look too thin and my chin looks too weak. I look at pictures from 10 years back and wonder how did my face end up the way it did today. Somewhere along the line, something happened and my face got messed up and I hate it.

I hate how I can’t control my weight. I’ve gone from 65kgs to a maximum of 100kg at one time. My waist size yoyo from size 30 to 40 in such a short time that it has to be unhealthy to say the least. Even today my weight fluctuation is so erratic that I find myself gaining 4kgs during the week only to lose it over the weekend. I have to admit that I have been using laxative herbal teas to help me control my weight to the point that I think that I’ve been abusing it. I’ve been so depended on them so long that I can’t be comfortable if I don’t have some every evening. I’ve told myself not to ever start purging no matter how I feel about my weight because I know that if I start doing then I would only hurt myself.

I realize that most of my self-esteem issues stems from the way I think people are perceiving how I look. I shy away from crowds because I can’t stop comparing my shortcomings to other people. I always avoid situations where cameras are around because I can’t stand to see how I look in a photograph. Don’t even get me started on my pathological avoidance of taking my clothes off in front of anyone. I realize that I have not been able to sustain a real relationship partly because I always feel that eventually the other person would realize my shortcomings and leave me for someone else. It doesn’t help that sometimes I feel that people are really reacting to someone’s looks first before the other things.

Every other day, every other hour, every other minute I seriously wish that I can stop hating how I look. I seriously wish that I can stop wishing that I can be somebody else.

God ... give me the strength to accept what I can’t change and the wisdom to tell the difference.

Movie Review – Batman Begins

(Image courtesy of Warner Bros. )

I went to see “Batman Begins” today at TGV Sunway Pyramid today. The one good thing of going to movies alone is that you would almost always get a seat even to a sold out show as there are usually single seats scattered about as opposed to getting multiple seats next to each other. It so happens that not only did I get a seat in a sold-out show this afternoon but I was also able to get almost the best seat in the house for the showing.

A tip for those watching movies in TGV Sunway Pyramid – always ask for seats near M14 if they are showing the movie in theater 1. The whole M row in that theater has extra leg room for people who like to stretch out while watching their movie but M14 is right where the audio sweet spot is for that room. You would really get the best audio a and video experience in and around that seat number. I always make it a point to get that seat if any of the movies that I want to see was playing in theater 1.

Back to the movie.

“Batman Begins” is the fifth installment of the Batman features that began with Tim Burton’s “Batman” back in 1989. This latest entry of the franchise is directed by Christopher Nolan brings the story back to basics to the origin of the person donning the cape and cowl. Gone are the trappings of the BatCave, BatPlane, BatSidekick, BatNipple and BatCodpiece that were all slowly bogging down the previous outing of the Dark Knight. We get in this movie is a leaner and meaner Batman that closely follows the character that comic book fans have known and loved for close to 66 years.

By taking elements from the fan-favorite “Batman: Year One” graphic novel by Frank Miller, Nolan has crafted a screenplay that exposes the mythic character as being all too human despite the mask that he wears. Through flashbacks sequence, the viewer is treated to glimpses of how the man behind the cowl became to be who he is from the moment that he witnessed his parents gunned down by a petty criminal in a dark and dirty alley. In a homage to the source material, comic readers will surely recognize the scene with young Bruce Wayne kneeling amongst his parents’ dead bodies as lifted directly from the comic books.

Even from the first act, the action sequences in this movie were truly breathtaking and dazzling. The rich scope of the sequences can be overwhelming for some but for those who have been sorely disappointed by the pervious installments of this series would welcome it wholeheartedly. The progression of these action set pieces are punctuated by quieter moments that wonderfully flesh out the movie with well developed characters and masterfully crafted dialogue. With nary a hair of inconsistent continuity, these moments are as joyful to watch as the explosive action sequences.

After 3 actors playing the titular character in the franchise, we now have a definitive interpretation of how the character should be portrayed from this movie. Like Christopher Reeves as “Superman” and Lynda Carter as “Wonder Woman” before him, future fans will remember Christian Bale as “Batman” when they think of the character. He combines the prerequisite swagger and charm to pull the character of Bruce Wayne much better than Val Kilmer ever did and has successfully projected a better quite menacing demeanor as Batman than Michael Keaton before him. Special mention also should be given to Michael Caine, Morgan Freemen and Gary Oldman for their masterful portrayal of Alfred, Lucius Fox and Jim Gordon respectively. Unfortunately the same could not be said for Katie Holmes as Rachel Dawes who seems at time overshadowed by the great talent around her.

As the main villains of this installment, Nolan has selected a long time fan favorite, Ra’s Al Ghul and the Scarecrow who is an underutilized villain in his gallery of rogues. By selecting a non-flashy villains compared to those who appeared in the previous movies, this movie thankfully avoids the pitfall of the villain outshining the hero of the story. I must say that I was pleasantly surprised by the twist in the third act of the film involving one of the villains of the piece as I was not expecting it at all. On the flipside, I felt the climatic battle involving the other was anti-climactic to say the least. They should have given this villain’s plotline a better resolution.

The movie ends with an opening for further sequels with a tantalizing glimpse of the possible future adversary. Much like the wildly popular “Spider-Man” movie series, it would be interesting to see where they will take this newly revamped franchise in the future. If this latest entry is any indication, the franchise is in good hands indeed.

Malaysian Idol 02-04, Airdate: 17/6/2005 – Kuala Lumpur Auditions

(Image courtesy of malaysianidol.bluehyppo.com)

OMG!

The audition show this week started off with a good singer singing “Masquerade” from my all time favorite singing group, The Carpenters. I am just beside myself with joy for the first time this season. I’m really sure that whatever I said about the show last week has no bearing on the way it was presented this week since I’m sure no one, much less anyone from 8TV, is reading my blog but I’ll take this improvement as a shout-out to long suffering fans of the show like me.

BTW ... guys if anyone is actually reading this, don’t be shy about leaving your feedback on the comments link.

Side note aside, the show really stepped up this week. There were a lot more good showing than the bad which made it more enjoyable to watch. Is it because there were better singers in KL compared to the other audition venues? I wonder what was the percentage of people go through in KL compared to those from the other locations. I wished that they had made all the audition shows that came before for this season like this. I would have saved me the migraines and physical pain of being aurally assaulted by bad singing the past 3 weeks.

Among the many that showed up, a few did stand out to me. The first must be the girl who was cut from last year’s top 30 for forgetting her lyrics. It was heartbreaking to see her fail and I must say that I really cheered for her when she sang the same song at the finals last year. This year she’s back and sounds as good as she did before. She looked much more polished and confident this time around. I’ll definitely be watching out for her to see how far she can go.

Another person that sticks in my mind was the girl who had dyed her hair Ronald McDonald red. I don’t know why but her appearance, minus the red hair, reminds me of Misha Omar. I thought that she has a good voice and sang very well although she would have to work on her breathing techniques while singing. The way she had to loudly take a breath after each verse was a bit too distracting to me.

I was quite excited to see someone from the Soliano family trying out for the show. I was surprised that they didn’t try it last year. If there is a local musical dynasty family in Malaysia, the Soliano family has to be it. I remember growing up listening to the grandfather conducting the RTM orchestra on the old time radio show back when I was a small boy. I thing some one in my family must have been big fans of him back then as I remembered always having the big radio on when his show was on the air. It would be interesting to see how far the 2 Soliano ladies can progress in the show.

For all the good singers there were also a few really bad stinkers that were shown on the show tonight. I usually avoid pointing out anyone in particular since my motto is if I don’t have anything good to say best that I don’t say anything at all but I just have to put that aside for this time. First and foremost, I have to point out the really bad Michael Jackson impersonator. He had the moves down pat but he just couldn’t sing to save his life. The strange thing was that one of the judges had to come back and do this PSA (public service announcement) thanking him and praising him on his courage for being himself and what not. I know you mean well and might be doing this to avoid looking mean but I beg you don’t encourage them. Lets avoid having people who don’t believe in themselves enough to have their own identity in the show.

The other thing that I just have to bring up was that guy who sang Britney Spear’s “I’m Not A Girl, Not Yet A Woman”. It is not a good song to begin with and to have a guy giving his best impression of Britney and singing this particular song on public TV is hilariously embarrassing to watch. Even the judges were doubled over by the ridiculousness of the situation. I think that he might be better served by doing “Crazy” instead if he absolutely must sing a Britney song for his audition. Wouldn’t anyone at the audition registration tables have to screen the constants first before the let them through? We even had a person just screaming instead of singing a few episodes back when it is clear that this was suppose to be a singing competition and not an outlet for some people to get TV air time.

Well it was a really good show from Malaysian Idol Season 2 this time around. Lets see if this momentum carries on in the theater elimination stage show next week.

Came In The Mail Today

I’m so excited !

The copy of the 50th Anniversary edition of “East of Eden” and “Rebel Without A Cause” 2-disk DVD set that I ordered from Amazon.com arrived today in the mail. I must have watched these 2 movies more than 20 times each but I have yet to tire of watching James Dean in action. He is still my favorite actor even if he has been dead for 50 years now. I remember growing up wanting to be cool like he was in “Rebel Without A Cause”. I also identified personally with his anguish at his failed attempts at getting his father’s approval in “East of Eden”. For the longest time I had my fair share of fantasies involving him in that famous red jacket.

I took a sneak peak at several scenes as soon as I came back from the office and was pleasantly surprised to see the quality of the restoration work done on the file. I’m really looking forward to watching the supplementary material on the DVD. I guess that I would be able to write up about it in this blog once I’ve finished watching the set.

PS: It seems that they will be showing “Desperate Housewives’ on 8TV in July. That’ll be something to look forward to on TV.

A Scary Thought

It was reported in the local evening news today that the people who organize the National Service Program for secondary school leavers are considering to add weapons training into their program modules. They are saying that this addition to the training modules is prompted by many requests from the public for the program to train these 18 year olds how to handle a loaded weapon to increase their self-discipline.

I don’t think so.

It is scary to think that they are willing to consider to train these people how to handle a weapon when they are not yet even allowed to vote. These people are not even allowed to buy cigarettes from a shop and yet they think that they can trusted with ammunition live or otherwise. No doubt that they would teach safe gun handling techniques as part of the training module but do these secondary school leavers really need this knowledge?

Teach them unarmed combat by all means if they want to instill self discipline but lets consider the wisdom of putting guns into the hands of children. The thought of these trainees leave the programs with knowledge of how to handle a weapon is very frightening. I thought that the National Service Program was establish to prepare these secondary school leavers for either life in tertiary education institutions or the general populace.

Since when did the National Service Program start training these children to be part of the military?

In The News Today

I read an article in one of the local newspaper here reporting that Malaysia will be on a brink of a HIV epidemic if necessary steps are not taken quickly to stem the spread of the disease. It seems that HIV cases are currently in the increase and that the largest group on record living with HIV in the country are the intravenous drug users. With that in mind, the government is considering a free needle and condom program targeted to these people. Of course there are some quarters in Malaysia are up in arms about the program saying that it is a waste of public funding and that it promotes drug usage and sexual activities.

While I applaud the governments plan to distribute free needles and condoms to drug addicts, I am wary of the effectiveness of the delivery system should a government agency be responsible for the distribution. For one, would they be really impartial to those who come to their centers seeking these free items. Would these addicts feel safe enough to come forward and claim these free needles if they fear that they would be arrested by the police if they came to the distribution centers for them? It would indeed be a waste of public funding if this program does not meet its objective just because of faulty execution.

I guess that in these situations, the NGOs like Pink Triangle and the like would be the best avenue for distributions. I’ve read somewhere that they have done something similar with the sex workers before so I don’t think that it would be a stretch to expand the distributions to include free needles. The only limitations that I see here is that these NGOs are mostly concentrated in the urban areas which leaves those who need this program in the rural areas out in the cold.

I hope that they seriously consider the distribution logistics carefully so they can maximize the impact of this program if they really decide to follow though with it. I do believe that this is a good program if done properly and proper awareness provided directly to those who need it. On that note, the article also says that the fastest growing group newly infected by HIV in Malaysia are those who contracted the disease through sexual contact. I am very disturbed by this fact and have personally heard how some people are wholly ignorant of safe sex practices.

I came to age in a time where everyone knew about the dangers of HIV and AIDS. I learn that sex must be practiced in a safe way. No protection meant no sex no matter what. Going for your first HIV test was a rite of passage every sexually active person had to go through. Somewhere along the way, the things that we learned back then are not passed down to the next batch of sexually active people. Where did things go wrong?

A Glimpse Into a Workday

Kinda of a slow day today at work. Been working hard to prepare the team for an upcoming Sorbane-Oxley audit at the end of the month. One advantage of working for a multinational company is that you get the chance to be audited for one hundred and one different things every other day.

I’m being sarcastic if it doesn’t seem apparent above.

Anyhow ... it is true that one advantage of working at a multinational company is that you get exposed more to the processes that are not necessarily applied in a local company at this time. This year is the second year I have to prepare the team for a SOX audit. In a way it is easier this year as I know what exactly they will be looking at and I have a clearer picture of the current level of preparedness in my organization. There are still things that I’m still not 100% satisfied but we still have 2 weeks get ready.

At least I have one more detail to pad my resume with.

Malaysian Idol 02-03, Airdate: 10/6/2005 - Penang Auditions

(Image courtesy of malaysianidol.bluehyppo.com)

I shamelessly admit that I am a reality-TV junkie. I just can’t get enough of them and I have only myself to blame for that. It all started with MTV “Real World” and now I would literally plan my schedule around the shows that I want to watch. Of course not all reality shows are created equal. The best ones for me are those that would have so much snark potential to be discussed with friends on the next day at work.

Closely following the end of the “American Idol”, the second season of “Malaysian Idol” started 3 weeks ago. I have to say that I was really looking forward for this season after seeing the quality of performance from last year’s contestants. I have to say that to date I have yet see any potential for this past 3 episodes.

I have to give them credit for being brave to go an try out for a chance to fulfill their dream of being a Malaysian Idol. Some were delusional about the level of singing abilities but they were brave to try out. I for one would never consciously try-out for something like this unless they wanted someone who could torture people to death with tone deaf singing. I definitely would not even put my worst enemies through it much less the Malaysian audience.

Having said that, I have to really question the selections of auditions that the shows producers have decided present in the past 3 shows. Though it’s a given that the purpose of these audition shows are to showcase the worst of the worst, I really did hoped that they would balance it out with more of the good auditions. I think to date, they have shown no more than 2 of the good auditions in every show this past 3 weeks. I don’t know how it is with other people but there is only some much aural assault that I can handle before I start tearing my hair out.

And yet I continue watching the show week after week.

I’m such a reality TV ho.

PS2 Game Review - God Of War

One of the things that I picked up during my blog hiatus was my PS2 gaming habit which partly explains why I couldn’t find enough time for my blog. I got it for my 31st birthday last year which may sound sad but in hindsight I have to say that it helped me keep my sanity especially when work got too intense in the office. I seriously believe that nothing is as therapeutic as coming home to immerse oneself into a console game and start hacking at on-screen monsters for an hour or two after a tough day managing projects, scant resources and unrealistic expectations.

Since then, I’ve gone through several titles although I must say that I usually just play them at the easiest levels so I can get through them and move to the next title. I may resort to reading a walkthrough from GameSpot.com if I get stuck but for most of the time, I usually can muddle through it. Most of the games that I currently have are either categorized as long drawn out CRPG or short gory actions games. I don’t really get into the other genres of games out there partly because I have the reaction time of a tree sloth so I’m abysmal at fighting games, driving games and 1st person shooters.

The reason for the previous two rambling paragraphs is to lead to my intentions to put down my thoughts/short review of the games that I’ve recently completed in my blog. I’ve wrote reviews of computer games (the last was back in Oct 2003) on the PC before on my blog so this is just an extension of that effort. Of course, not being a professional game reviewer, I can only give my own opinions about the games that I’ve completed. So to start things off, I present to you my thought about one of the best games I’ve seen in a while.


(Image courtesy of Gamespot.com)

Title : God Of War
Publisher : SCEA
Genre : Action
Platform : PS2

I read a lot of good things about “God of War” published by SCEA (Sony Computing Entertainment America) even before it was released from the various gaming trade sites on the Net. It was one of the very few games that I immediately bought to try out when it first appeared in the local market. I rarely do that as usually I would wait for more gamer reviews before trying a new game. I would quickly find out that I wouldn’t be disappointed.

From the start, GoW sucks the player into an immersive gaming experience. The story opens with a cut scene of playable character standing at the edge of a cliff before plunging down to the rocks below apparently to his death. With an opening hook like that, players are immediately vested into the game wanting to learn what events had led the character to this point of the story.

The controls and gameplay for GoW are easy to learn and most users could easily master the multiple combo attacks that would be the mainstay of the character. Each combos are uniquely detailed that chaining different combos are not only effective in dispatching the baddie on screen but is also beautiful to look at when executed. In addition to combo attacks, there are also other context sensitive button combination available when dispatching certain monsters and end of level bosses. Successfully completing the sequence may allow the player to refresh their health or magic power in addition to the game experience bonuses. For most of the bosses, successfully completing the sequence is the only way to defeat them and move to the next level.

The fighting in the game is perfectly balanced out with the puzzle solving aspects of this genre. Most of the puzzles in the game are easy to figure out and helps to slow down the pace of the game which could be quite frenzied at times. In accordance to the theme of the game, most of the puzzles involve pushing levers, moving blocks and the like. There are also the usual pitfalls, spinning columns and balancing beams that need to be completed in order to complete the current objective. Some of the puzzles consist of several mini puzzles that need to be solved before the bigger solution is available which further increased the sense of accomplishment when the player has successfully completed the puzzles.

There is a sufficiently large collections of enemies and monsters to go though to keep the game visually interesting. Even at the easiest levels, the games throws an interesting mix of baddies for the player to hack at . There are a lot of check points through out the story that the player can start from if their character dies instead of going back all the way from the last save point. Most of the enemies are triggered when the player first enters the area and will not respawn after they have been defeated even after the player backtracks into the area again. This makes this game more forgiving than most but it does not lessen the enjoyment.

I have to admit that the thing that I enjoyed the most about this game is the storyline and the graphics. Players are not told the whole story of what was happening at the beginning of the game. Without a full backstory, players are compelled to continue the game to find out more about the main character as his stories unfold in beautifully rendered cutscenes. The storyline it self is quite dark at moments but it is not without it’s own sense of humor. A word of caution, there are some excessive scenes of blood and gore in some of the cutscenes that might disturb some players. Being that it is integral to the plot, impressionable players should either be supervised when playing or give this game a miss until they can handle the subject matter.

Overall, I thought that GoW is the most well planned, beautifully rendered and immersive gaming experience I’ve had this year. I would highly recommend it to anyone who love a good game in the action genre on the PS2.

Next game : Mad’s Spy vs. Spy by Global Star Software and Vicious Cycle.

When Good Blog Hacks Go Bad

From what I can find out on the Net, it seems that Blogger.com does not support category tags. Supposedly in order to have your blog entries organized by categories, I have to either use one of the blogging authoring application like WordPress etc or move my blog to Live Journal. Neither options are appealing to me at this point as I’m currently satisfied with what Blogger.com is offering and have no intention to change at the moment.

Would having my previous entries organized into category make them more interesting?
Definitely not.

Would it make the reading experience more enjoyable?
Depends on what you define as enjoyable.

I think that I can safely say that I have been blogging on a range of subjects that are all over the map that having them organized in category might be helpful. If I could do that, people who are only interested about ready my previous film reviews for example could quickly select the posts on that subject instead of having to slog through all the entries of a particular one searching for them.

Of course that would only work if I dutifully categorized each post as I write them.

What has gone before

After an absence of nearly 15 months, I’ve decided to revive this blog space to document my life as I am living it. Before moving forward with that, I guess I owe it to the readers of my previous attempt at blogging some explanations.

1. Why the long hiatus?

Life and work items clashed with my blogging plans. It got to a point that blogging had became a chore instead of being fun. It was not as therapeutic as it was when I first started blogging. Skipping blog entries became easier to justify instead of sticking to the daily entry regime. I could see what was happening at the time but I felt like I was not in control of everything that was happening around me.

2. Why restart now?

For one, I have more time now that I’m not managing any urgent projects at work. Part of the reason I stopped before was so I could focus my resource to manage a global project that was dropped in my lap when the previous project manager jumped ship. Now that that project is over, I’m finding more free time everyday to start documenting my life again.

I’ve also had a broadband connection installed at my house for a while now that would definitely help with uploading my postings. I had to deal with the crawling and unreliable dial-up lines for the longest time with my previous blogging attempts. I’m sure that my current bandwidth would make the whole process much easier.

I guess lastly, I could say that I want to reach out to other people again with my stories. Blogging has been a source of enjoyment in that it has introduced me to a whole new circle of friends that I would not have encountered before had I not started blogging. I’ve been reading about their stories and their life in every new posting that it’s just fair that I do the same with mine.


3. What happened to your remaining “Explorace” season 1 write-ups?

Mark this down as a failed experiment. I did watch all the episodes of season 1 up to the finale and even made contact with some of the contestants in hopes of getting interviews from them for the site. I had all entries planned out and it was to be the definitive write-up for this local TV show on the web. Sadly, I could not follow through with all the plans I laid out.

Writing the weekly recaps was quite the challenge since I was writing them as I watched them on TV instead of from tape. More often than not, I found myself jotting notes of things as they happen on TV instead of actually watching the show. As a result, I found that instead of looking forward to an enjoyable time watching the show, it became so much a chore because I was always worried that I would miss something important for the weekly recap. In the end, I felt that I was not giving the effort it’s due and the entries were reflecting that.

On the plus side, the whole experience did give me a whole new appreciation for people who would write weekly recaps of TV shows like the wonderful people of TWOP :) BTW ... I did not watch any episodes of Explorace season 2 so I have no idea what's happening there.

4. What changes have you done to the site?
For the time being, most of the changes are cosmetic in nature. Blogger.com have really improved the available selection of blog customization tools since I was last there 15 months ago. It makes creating a half-way decent blog page very much easier that it was back then.

The archives of my previous postings are listed in a drop down menu to the right of this entry which allows readers to pull pervious postings by the month they were written. Readers could also click on the mail icon under each entry to email the posting to either themselves or their friends if the so desire. Everyone is free to share my postings around but I do ask that they do so responsibly and not quote anything out of context.

I’ve restarted the comments page for the new postings but in doing so have not save the old comments from my old guestbook. Partly this is because I’ve decide to use the comments options offered by Blogger.com instead of my old guestbook provider. I did however retain my old visit count counter but have not decided yet if I want to reset the count to start from scratch.

I’m guessing that this is enough for now although there are other things that I could easily add to the site from Blogger.com instead. For one, I could now easily add a tag board although I have to really consider if that is something that I want to host on this blog. I’ve seen too many tag boards hijacked for their own purposes by irresponsible readers. Why deal with that when comments tag are easier to moderate.

4. What should we expect in future postings?

I think that I will not be committing myself to produce daily entries as I did before. I’ve learnt my lesson from my previous attempt for putting such rigid schedule and expectations on myself. Instead I plan to have semi-regular entries as and when something moves me to write about it. Some days when I have more to say may result in multiple short entries in a day while on some days I just feel like skipping an entry. Regardless, I’ll keep linking the entries into the monthly archives so you can review them at your own leisure.

As for the content, I’m guessing that it would be pretty much the same thing as what I had before. More of things that are happing in my life, things that I’m currently passionate about, things that I’m reading/watching/listening etc. The details could be banal to some but everyone is entitled to their own opinions, I only ask that they respect the opinions of others as well. If we have to disagree on something , lets just disagree to agree on the points instead of making it into a personal attack.

‘Nuff said for now.

Let's try this again, shall we?

I have decided to revive this old blog again so look forward to a new look and new content coming to you on a semi regular basis soon. In the meantime, browse through my old postings just to refresh you while waiting for new news.

Don't forget to leave a comment if you have any feedback on how the site is progressing.

A Non-Writer's Journey - Beginings

Among one of the things that I told myself that I would try to do and finish within this year is another screenplay. It has been close to 2 years since I completed my first one and I felt that it was about time that I tried to get another one out. The blog entries that I have been putting out for these past few months have partly been for the purpose of keeping me in practice with writing and an exercise in creative expression. Part entertainment, part therapeutic and part confessional, these blogs have helped me keep the creative juices flowing and help me organize some ideas in my head.

I have had people who asked me where I learned to write the way I do. It bears repeating that I am not a writer by trade. I have never trained in the art of being a writer other that the basics that one would get from high school and college. I don’t aspire to be a writer for I don’t think that I have the aptitude for it much less the skill to write anything remarkable. What I write usually comes from gut instinct on how the story flows from one point to another rather than the strict conventions of structure. I humbly believe that in its simplest essence, my writing comes from the need for me to tell the stories that I have in my head. These half formed stories and images sometimes seemed to shout out demanding to be heard and that is when I am driven to write them down. I have several notebooks filled with story ideas in varying degrees of completeness and details. Some were no more than bullet points while there are others that came close to complete screenplay treatments. I can never tell when or how these ideas come to me. For all I know I might have been a storyteller in a past life or they are just ramblings from a demented mind. Regardless of their origins, I continue to feel passionate and driven by them.

The story for the screenplay that I’m planning to write this year has been knocking around in my heard for a few years now. It has gone through several incarnations in my notebook over that time and I finally feel that it is now in the flow that I feel confident enough to try to attempt to expand into a full screenplay. Being more of a visual person, the first step that I would have to do for this type of undertaking is to break the story down into scenes to see how many scenes I needed to have to tell the story. One tip that I learnt from the experience of writing my first screenplay was that the best way for me to do this is to get all these screen descriptions written out on medium sized Post-it notes and post them on large piece of cardboard or even to the world. This creative device allows me to visually see the progression of the story as well as allowed me to keep the bigger story firmly in view when I need to rearrange scenes. I guess that one can call it a version of the storyboard but made up of textual descriptions on post-it notes instead of pictures. It is also nice to be able to check scenes off from the board after completing them and have a visual representation of the progress of the piece.

It is only once I get this step squared away that I really dive into the writing experience.

Post Scripts from The Edge (of Sanity)

Brain. Freeze. Can’t. Think. Writer’s. Block. Must. Stop. Speaking. Like. Captain. Kirk.

PS: Got my DVD copy of Star Trek V: Undiscovered Country today and thus completing my classic ST feature film collection. Hopefully they would re-release the ST: TNG feature films in this collector’s item edition someday.

PPS: They are going to start showing “The O.C.” on Ch8 beginning this coming Saturday at 10:45pm. I am so looking forward to seeing this show after reading so much about it on TWOP. The main male leads are simply delish eye candy and the HoYaY level on this series is in the category of 1st season Smallville and 2nd season Angel. I am definitely counting the days before this series comes on air.

PPPS: Amazon.com has put up the “Popular: Season One” DVD set on pre-order status and I, of course, have put in my order. This series only ran for 2 seasons in the States which was a shame because it was really funny and had a lot of potential. I found out about the show when the showed both seasons on TV2 awhile back. The show was funny, campy, had a lot of style and of course nice male eye-candy.

PPPPS: The holiest of holy grails in DVD is finally coming as they are finally going to release the 1st Star Wars trilogy in a 4 DVD boxed set later this year. The news is that they would put the 1997 special release edition instead of the original theatrical version which is fine by me but has been criticized by some of the purist. Regardless of the controversy, I’m just happy that it is coming on DVD.

Oh Pacey, you idiot!

S finally called me to tell me that he would be coming to my house this weekend. He most probably wants to check out the new home entertainment system I bought. I would most probably be spending a lot of time in front of it since I finally got my copy of “Dawson’s Creek: Complete Season 2” yesterday. It would be fun revisiting the whole Capeside crew again as well as getting a fix for my Josh Jackson addiction. BTW ... Season 2 was when they introduced Jack who later in the same season came out of the closet. The character would continue for many seasons of the series but the rumor was the actor who was playing Jack was really upset that he had to play a gay character. He may not like it in the beginning but we get to watch him grow into and became more comfortable with the character over the years.

It took me a while to figure out why they choose “Superstitions” for the theme for this week’s Friday Five. I kept on wondering about it until I happened to glance at the calendar on my desk in the office and realized what date it was. Very sneaky of them.

1. Are you superstitious?
I guess that you can say that I am a bit superstitious about some stuff. The way I see it some of the more popular superstitions do actually have some grounding in real life if you look at them closely. Some of the more famous examples of this are the superstition about walking under the ladder or the one about breaking a mirror. Both could be seen as a warning to avoid unnecessary accidents. Of course there are other superstitions that are really out there and are hard to understand how they come to be. Of course living in Asia just adds on several layers of fun superstitions to the mix. The main point of it all is that, while it is good and well that we have all these superstitions, we should not let them rule/control how we operate in our daily lives.

2. What extremes have you heard of someone going to in the name of superstition?
I personally know someone who bought a house and renovated it at 10 times the cost of the house he purchased all because the feng-shui of the house was all wrong. He basically tore the whole house down and built it up with the goal of maximizing the feng-shui results. Every piece of brink, furniture, paint color, tree and even the fish in the house had to be approved by a feng-shui master before he allowed it into the house plan. I asked him why he even bought the house in the first place if he had to tear in down and spend the obscene amount of money he did and he told me that it was because the location the house was located was good for feng-shui. For something that was designed to attract wealth, the house really put a dent in his pocket that I have to wonder if it is really worth the time.

3. Believer or not, what's your favorite superstition?
My favorite superstition is a local Malaysian superstition that if you hear or smell anything strange in the dead of the night, especially at Thursday nights, you should never comment on them lest something supernatural/undead followed you home because you called to them by your comment. This used to scare the crap out of me as a kid especially when I started sleeping on my own bed alone. I still believe in this superstition till today and would never make a comment about anything out of place at nights if I don’t have to. I mean ... why tempt fate?

4. Do you believe in luck? If yes, do you have a lucky number/article of clothing/ritual?
I absolutely believe in luck and lucky items. Some days it seems that I need to get all the luck tokens cashed in to just get through it. My lucky number is 7, my lucky color is navy blue and I have a piece of petrified wood set in a ring of gold and bronze alloy that my late grandmother gave me which I consider to be my lucky charm that I wear always.

5. Do you believe in astrology? Why or why not?
I do sometimes read those astrology predictions and some have uncanny parallels to what was happening in my real life that it is hard not to think that there is something more to it. I would say that I don’t discount them out of the gate but I would never let it rule my daily life.

Explorace 01-04, Airdate: 11 Feb 2004

Previously on Explorace, team Ayaz and Ahsan (Team DoubleA) competed against the team of Choon Heng and Phillip (Team Uncle) in last week’s race that started at the grounds surrounding Sultan Ibrahim Building, Johor Bahru. Route 1 took half of the two teams clue hunting at several houses of worship near and around Harmony Street while the other half of the team had to cycle across town to the Hutan Bandar Recreational Park to solve their task of finding the scientific name for a particular orchid plant for Route 2. At the end of their task, Route 1 competitors ended up at a Sikh temple where they were served a very difficult breakfast to finish before proceeding to the next task. To get the golden key, Route 1 team had to travel to Kota Tinggi Waterfall Resort to participate in an obstacle course before diving into the cold waters of the waterfall to find it. Route 2 team had to travel to Pekan Nenas Pineapple Research Center and perform the easier task of harvesting 20 pineapples to get their gold boxes. Both teams were directed to their rendezvous point at Senai TC Arapaima and Tropical Fish Sdn. Bhd. Mini Zoo where there race really got exciting. After completing a task that involved gulping raw ostrich eggs among other things, both teams were directed to make their assigned VW Bug road-worthy before racing to the finish line at Dataran Bandaraya Johor Bahru. Team DoubleA crossed the finish line first but not before barreling their car into the other cars that were parked at the finish line. For a time, their win was still up in the air as they were previously warned that they could be disqualified from the race for their reckless driving. In the end the race marshals, in a controversial move, decided to declare Team DoubleA as the winners of this leg of the race and move forward to the second round on the condition that they had to pay for all damages that they caused.

Race 4 of Explorace Round 1 this week started at the grounds in front of the historic site of the Portuguese fort of A’Famosa in Bandar Melaka, Malacca. As it was with previous races, the two teams that were competing this week were the team of Yoges and Simon against the team of Shaiful and Keat. They showed some of the pre race chatter between the two teams this week which was a bit odd as I don’t recall they did at previous races. The pre race conversations focused more on how they were friends even if they had to compete against each other in the race which I thought was refreshing considering we only saw pre race trash talking between the contestants in previous installments at this point. There was also a notable absence of a local official to flag the racers off this time so Daphne had to start the race herself. I noticed that Yoges seemed to flinch visibly when Daphne started the race with the air horn which caused me to wonder if he was a bit nervous at the start of the race and was taken by surprise with the loud horn or if it was Daphne who blew the horn too close to Yoges’s ears.

In a refreshing change this week because the first clues did not involve visiting a place of worship for once, Route 1 contestants of Simon and Shaiful were directed to take a trishaw ride to the bus station and take a bus to get to Bukit Serindit where their first trivial question waited for them at a local terompah (wooden foot clogs) factory. From the very beginning both contestants decided that to think of a strategy of trying to get a lead over the other this early in the race was pointless and that it would be to both their advantage to cooperate to figure out how to get to their first clue. I have to say the decision of not working on a strategy to screw the other contestant over was quite noble of them but in the end didn’t really make for an exciting race. Both contestants arrived at the bus stop at 7:45 and found the correct bus to take to get to their next destination.

In the meantime, Route 2 contestants of Yoges and Keat were also directed to go on a trishaw ride to the taxi stand where they were to take a taxi to Bukit Katil where they had to find the Soon Hee Honey Bee Farm. Both teams were exceptionally friendly and chatty with the trishaw rider which further solidify my assumption that both teams were taking things easy for this part of the race. They were not too consumed by the race like the other racers that we saw before and I actually found this to be a bit refreshing for a change. After the short trishaw ride, both contestants arrived at the taxi stand at 7:55 and each got a taxi easily enough to get to the next destination. Yoges, who seemed to be savvy and familiar enough with the other more famous racing reality show, immediately asked the taxi driver if he knew where exactly was the place that he had to go to. After receiving a non-committal answer, he offered to use his mobile to find out but it was declined. Once the journey started it was clear to both contestants that the taxi driver could get them to Bukit Katil but was not familiar with the area enough to find the exact destination. Keat had to stop and ask the direction from a local shop while Yoges used his mobile to call the operator to get the number for the shop so he could call them to ask for directions. This turned out to be the better strategy as he was able to get the correct directions quickly and reach the bee farm first at 8:28.

While the contestants in Route 1 were waiting for their bus, they were told that their teammates in Route 2 failed to pay for their trishaw ride and now they had to pay for them. I’m sure that it was an honest mistake on their part but this incident made me wonder if the race officials didn’t have any sort of pre race briefing for the contestants to tell them that they were responsible for all the expenses incurred during the race. Simon called Yoges, who was on his way to the bee farm at this point to confirm about the non-payment and reminded him that he should ask the driver next time if he was suppose to pay for the trip. I would think that this is a good strategy because the last thing you want to happen to you in a race of this nature is to build up bad karma from not paying the person who was giving you the ride so that you can win the prize money. Just before getting on the bus, Simon went around to ask what a “terompah” was which I found to be quite funny as I would think that most Malaysians would be familiar with what it was. From what I could tell, Simon was genuinely in the dark about what it was and had to take a few minutes before figuring what it was after having it described to him by a local. This unintentional humorous moment was only the first of many for this hilarious installment of Explorace.

After getting off at Bukit Serindit at 8:25am, Route 1 contestants were told that they had to wait outside the terompah factory for at least 5 minutes as the factory’s operating hours only started at 8:30am. I found this to be a bit funny as this reminded me of the ‘bunching’ that always happens to the contestants in the ‘Amazing Race’ just when they were trying hard to keep their lead. It was also hilarious to see how everyone was just standing around waiting for 8:30 to come around. While waiting, the two contestants were trying to guess what they had to do there if they fail to answer their trivial question. I would have imagined that it would be clear to anyone seeing this that they would be making terompah if they fail their trivia test but it seemed that this option never crossed their minds when they were trying to guess what they might have to do. After guessing badly about what they might have to do, the contestants were given their trivial question which they both fail to answer correctly. At this point, I was wondering how the race marshals would decide who gets to answer the question first if both contestants reached the checkpoint at the same time. Regardless how they chose who goes first to answer the question, both contestants had to complete the penalty challenge which involves them making 10 pairs of terompah from scratch.

While his partner was trying his hand at terompah making, Yoges had to search for the next clue envelope in a marked honey bee hive as the penalty challenge for failing to answer his trivial question in the allotted time. We did not see the briefing given by the beekeeper on how to handle bees but I would guess that the briefing was either too short or Yoges forgotten most of the briefing in his hurry to get to the clue envelope from the way he kept getting stung. It took him at least 3 false starts before being able to carefully remove the hive frames from the box in order for him to get to the green clue envelope which he finally did at 8:37. While this was going on, Keat was looking for the honey bee farm at the wrong place. In fact, the show editors even put a really hilarious caption that said ‘8:29 Keat – Lost in Bukit Katil’ to tell us that he was still unable to reach the next checkpoint. It took him an additional 5 minutes before he found the correct honey bee farm and began his penalty task just as Yoges finished his. The clue that was hidden in the bee hive told them to go to the Melaka Raya Bridge using the marked bicycle assigned to them and get the next challenge envelope there. Keat seemed to take longer than Yoges to complete the bee challenge as he spent nearly 20 minutes at the bee farm compared to Yoges’s 9 minutes. When Keat finally began his cycle to the next checkpoint, Yoges was already in the lead by 20 minutes.

When we returned to Route 1 contestants, we see the still deep in their terompah making. We saw them painting the terompah base with the traditional red color as well as cutting up what I assume was the inner tube of an old bicycle tires into smaller pieces. I have to be honest that I still can’t figure out where the small pieces of tire go on a terompah. I don’t think that they go on the top part of the terompah as they usually use plastic for that part at least on the terompah that I’ve seen before. (Anyone who can enlighten me on where those tire pieces go on the terompah is welcomed to leave a friendly comment at the end of this transcript). In a later confession, Simon complained that making the terompah was not as easy as he thought as he had larger fingers that he kept accidentally hitting with the hammer. We also saw that both contestants got helpful pointers from the factory workers on how to make the terompah although I have to say that Simon really got the short end of the deal in this case. I’m not trying to be mean but I have to say that I laughed out loud when I first heard the old man who was teaching Simon how to make the terompah speak. This old man was mumbling the instructions like a person who had lost all his teeth and had a swollen tongue. I could not understand a word he said and I wondered how Simon could make heads or tails of the instructions. Simon was still making his 10 pair of terompah when Shaiful finished his at 9:30 and was given the clue to the next check point. The clue instructed them to use another set of marked bicycles to cycle to the Crocodile Farm at Ayer Keroh.
Somewhere between the honey bee farm and Melaka Raya Bridge, Yoges must have took a wrong turn or something as Keat was able to catch up with him even when Yoges started this leg with a 20 minute lead. Both Route 2 contestants arrived at the Melaka Raya Bridge at the same time at 9:25am. When they arrived at the bridge, they were directed to don the provided wet suit and abseiling down the bridge to the base where they had to find their golden box hidden somewhere among the craggy rocks at the bottom of the bridge. It took both of them nearly 20 minutes before they reach the bottom of the bridge and began their search for the golden box among the rocks. It was Keat who found his first at 9:47 and he was the first one to go off by jet ski to Pulau Besar where he will rendezvous with his teammate before beginning the team challenge. Yoges found his golden box three minutes after Keat and quickly jumped on the jet ski to try to catch up with Keat who was currently leading. In a confessional, Yoges related how he was told by the jet ski instructor to take the jet ski out to deeper waters as it was easier for the jet ski to pickup speed on deep waters compared to shallow waters near the shore. By following this tip, Yoges managed to close the gap and arrive at Pulau Besar at exactly the same time as Keat did at 10:30. For most of their time in Route 2, both contestants were racing neck to neck with neither holding the edge over the other. They now had to wait for their partners from Route 1 to arrive before then can begin the next leg of the race.

For most of the bicycle race to the Ayer Keroh Crocodile Farm, Shaiful was able to maintain a respectable 17 minutes lead in front of Simon. He arrived at the Crocodile Farm at 10:10 which meant that he had to cycle for almost 40 minutes. In a confessional, Shaiful remarked that he had not cycled that long before and it was lucky for him that they were provided with police escorts who help stop traffic for him as he raced to Ayer Keroh. The next challenge that the contestant had to do here was to get the clue envelope for the next destination. The problem was the clue was tied to the tail of a crocodile and that the contestants had to walk up to the crocodile to get it. Since Shaiful arrived first, he was in the crocodile enclosure first to get his clue. The contestants were briefed about how to approach these crocodiles safely and I’m sure that medical personnel were on hand nearby but I couldn’t help thinking that this was really risky. In his first attempt, Shaiful managed to bring the crocodile up to shore but it snapped to when Shaiful tried to reach for the clue envelope. It was only after the second attempt when Shaiful manage to get the clue envelope off the tail of the crocodile and was directed to find the golden key in the nearby ‘haunted house’ fun house. After a short search in a surprisingly bright ‘haunted house’, Shaiful found his golden key and was on his way to the Anjung Batu Jetty for a ferry trip to Pulau Besar. Simon was trailing by 25 minutes at this point and had the same reservations after seeing what he had to do for the next clue envelope but he was able to complete the given task just in time to catch the same bus as Shaiful who unfortunately lost the lead that he had built up to that point due to bus schedules. Both contestants reached town on the same bus at 11:25 and got on separate taxis to get to the Anjung Batu Jetty to catch the 12:00 ferry to Pulau Besar.

Once Route 1 contestants arrived at Pulau Besar at 12:15 and once they were reunited with their teammate, they were tasked to find 4 Explorace tags on the island which would be exchanged with 4 items that would be part of the next challenge. Both teams start off this tag hunt at 12:20 by trying to find the water tank where one of the tags was located. Both teams were given a map of the area but I assume that the actual locations of the tags were not marked on the map since the contestants still had to ask from directions from the locals to locate these tags. For most of the time, it seemed that Shaiful was luckier in finding the tags as he was able to find 3 of the 4 tags single handedly thanks to the help of the locals. It was actually funny to see how the locals reacted to the contestants’ request for directions. The most memorable reaction I remembered from the episode was when Shaiful asked for the directions to the wishing well from a local who asked him if he actually believed the stuff about the wishing well. It doesn’t sound that funny when you read about it but trust me that it was really hilarious on screen. Both teams managed to find the 4 tags at about the same time and exchange them for a water tank, rubber hose, wet suit and compass. They were taken to their next check point on what has to be the worst looking van still moving in the country. It was really hilarious to see this wreck of a van with absolutely no windows at all tooling on the road to the next check point. This van scene came so far off center that it just underscored how wacky the race was this week.

Once they reached the checkpoint they were allowed to open the golden box which contained the next clue that told them to use the items that they got from exchanging their tags to prepare a jet ski for a quick trip back to the Anjung Batu Jetty before catching a bus at 16:15 to go to the final race destination at the A’Famosa Waterpark and Resort near Alor Gajah. After the buildup about finding the 4 items in the previous task, it was disappointing for me that we did not get to see how the contestants used the items to prepare their jet skis. At least we were told that at the end of the jet ski trip, Shaiful somehow lost his glasses which would really be a major hurdle to overcome coming this late in the competition. For the first time in the competition, all four contestants were on the same bus going to their final race destination which was the A’Famosa Waterpark and Resort which they arrived at 17:20. At 17:35 the two teams began the race to complete their final task which involved solving several clues given to them by using the compass that they got in Pulau Besar. Team Yoges and Simon ran into a slight disagreement with each other when they ran into problems trying to figure out how to work the compass but they managed to solve all the clues at 17:50 which sent them to the nearby small stream where they had to build a raft from the bamboo and tire tubes provided to them there. Team Shaiful and Keat was still trying to complete their clues when Team Yoges and Simon completed their raft and was already in the water by the time the other team arrived to build their raft. After the short raft trip, Team Yoges and Simon reached the other end of stream and were escorted to the finish line at the Resort’s Cowboy Town where they were greeted by Daphne with a somewhat out of place sounding “Howdy Boys!” greeting. I have to say that I always thought that the A’Famosa Waterpark and Resort Cowboy Town was tacky and seeing how they decided to end this week’s race did not change my impression of the place. They had a bunch of people who dressed up as American Indians dancing around the wining team who were presented with something that I guess was suppose to be a medicine staff accompanied with a blast of confetti as they are declared the winners for this race by finishing ahead of Team Shaiful and Keat by a measure of 10 minutes.

The way the race ended this week, while I thought was unnecessarily tacky; further underscore my assertion that this must be the wackiest race we have seen so far. Not only was it the wackiest race but with the race clocking in at close to 11 hours it has to be the record setter for the longest race ever on this season. I would doubt that we would see the rest of the races running this long. While I must say that the race was a bit drawn out due to the distances that the contestants had to travel, the funny moments, both intentional and unintentional; really made this episode memorable for me. Both teams who were in this week’s race was surprisingly refreshing in their good guy approach to racing but in the end only one good guy team can win the race. This time around, that distinction fell on the team of Yoges and Simon whom I will fondly remember after this race as Team Chatty. They will follow in the steps of the previous three teams into the second round where more challenges will await them.

Next week, Explorace moves on to Georgetown, Penang where two more teams will compete against each other to secure their place in the second round.