The Road through my Fucked Up Life.

Road paved on 11:02 PM |

"THIS IS SPARTA!!!!!"

... is the most overused phrase since the hot movie came out.

And sizzling hot it was. 300 (50 real and 250 computer generated) men with tanned skin, taunt over 6 packs and muscles, gleaming with sweat, it is any girl's fantasy. If I did not got to watch the movie for it's action, it is for the men. "D man". And on an Imax screen no less. Each biceps is about the size of my face on the screen.

*wipes up drool from keyboard*

I finished reading the comic Frank Miller's 300 before going to watch the movie. They stayed pretty true to the comic, till most dialogs were a verbatim from the comic. And they added the part in the bedroom and the council. And of course they had worn loinclothes, cos in the comics, the men were pretty naked with their penis hanging out there in the open.

Do not go to that movie wanting some drama. It is all about action, the raw strength of the Spartans butchering and bathing themselves in blood. The fights were beautifully executed.

Not beautiful in the way Jet Li fights, but beautiful in how the sword slices a man in half in slow-mo, every powerful blow was a masterpiece. The brutality of it, the violence, it is enough to send the blood boiling. When the Spartans roared, you have the urge to roar with them.

This may not be the best movie out there of awe-inspiring drama and morals. It is all about the blood and the gore and the men. “D man!”.

And I would not have blogged about it if not for this slide of comic I saw by VGcats.

Click for an enlarged view.

And in remembrance of Easter, I give you:

You can round up a million maggots to try to defeat me...
but you'll still all just be maggots!
- Luca Blight, Suikoden II

We passed by on 11:02 PM |

Road paved on 2:36 AM |

God is good...

...AMEN.

Yes, my results are out. And God has been good.

You would think how appropriate it was, it being Good Friday and Easter is just around the corner. A time of remembrance of my Savior who hung out on that cross like how those Jews will hang out their clothing. Ok, maybe wrong analogy. But He was left there on the cross to die, and why?

For me.

The thought was humbling, the very thought of it was painful and with that came pure gratefulness. Ever since I have taken Him into my life, my life have been nothing but pure blessings.

No! I'm not just talking about my results (well... partly yes as well). But it seems like my life is somehow so much easier to live in, even though it is a fucked up life. I am surviving in this fucked up life, I am contented and happy with this fucked up life, and this is all because of my Lord Jesus Christ.

The Christians always say how God put barriers and pitfalls and traps and mines to test us, to make us suffer, because we believe that only at the time of crisis and suffering that we are closest to God. But won't take make God a very sadistic god?

Forgive me Father, for I have blaspheme.

But I do not believe that God wants us to suffer. God is good... sure he has put many many pitfalls before me, but somehow I have not reach a part where I really stumbled and sat down crying. And God has been good that way. He never gave me a pitfall I never could climb out from. Whenever I fall into a large big hole, all I have to do is pray and not worry about it. God will get me out, God will bring me to His arms and comfort me. I can relax knowing that He is there for me, all the time.

For example, a very close person to me was diagnosed with the big C thing a few years back. All my family members were afraid, they started clamouring around like lemmings who lost their heads. But I found myself just sitting back and relaxing, knowing that God will take care of this, that God will care for the person, and for me. So why worry?

And I was so relaxed that I found myself thinking: Wow, what a cold-blooded bitch I am.

Then I started wondering if I'm taking Him for granted. I do not have to worry about my life, because He has taken care of everything, and He will continue to do so. I find myself having totally blind faith, I will follow Him and whatever He says is gospel truth. Isn't that what we are supposed to do? Trust in Him fully. Sure, sometimes I do throw tantrums, demanding why things go like this, but I accept it as well. He has something up His sleeve, I may not know what it is, but it is sure going to be good for me.

But as long as I trust Him, love him, desire Him... I cannot go wrong. So Father, take me into Your arms, this little daughter of Yours, and Amen.

Fear is a stupid emotion.
- Luca Blight, Suikoden II

We passed by on 2:36 AM |

Road paved on 1:25 AM |

Movies? Seriously?

Remember my last post about the 2 movies that I downloaded. Well, I guess I have time to blog about it today (cos I ponteng-ed my GP after going to pick up my Hannibal Rising).

$13 for my Hannibal, I am happy, happy, happy. 'anibal is my favourite character in fiction and I always dreamt to be like him. I have created a character of myself using 'anibal is the mold in my thory, tho I lobe 'anibal bely muth.

So onto the review!

First off:



















The Trailer:

From IMBD:
"Pan's Labyrinth" is the story of a young girl who travels with her pregnant mother to live with her mother's new husband in a rural area up North in Spain, 1944, after Franco's victory. The girl lives in an imaginary world of her own creation and faces the real world with much chagrin. Fascist repression during the first years of Franco's dictatorship is at its height in rural Spain and the girl must come to terms with that through a fable of her own."

What you see in the trailer is a mixture of a fantasy world inlaid in the reality of the Spanish Civil War. It is a Spanish movie with English subtitles. One may think that I am too old for fairy tales, but nobody is ever too old for fairy tales. And when a fantasy movie is rated 'R' for excessive violence, you know that you are in for one hell of a strange movie. The press calls it 'adult fantasy', and the reality of the real world was brutal and sadistic and not suitable for anyone who is below 17.

The opening scenes of the movie opens with a tale, a fairy tale. Then the scenes zooms in to the main focus of the movie: Ophelia, the young girl who was reading a story book. She has her head wrapped up in fairy tales (just like me), but she has to wake up to the real world, where about two thirds of the movie is about. We get glimpses of the fantasy world through Ophelia's eyes, and the fantasy world is not a world pictured by Walt Disney with dancing fairies and grinning dwarfs.

This is the fantasy world that I have known before but have forgotten due to Walt Disney. Fairy tales are not always happy cheerful tales with no blood watsoeva. They were either toned down in newer editions or warped by Walt Disney.

Take for example Cinderella. Do you know what happened to the two stepsisters after Cinderella married her Prince? They were chained to a wall and their eyes plucked out by white doves.

The evil stepmother in Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs? When Snow White became queen, the evil stepmother was forced into iron shoes that has been put upon fire, and she danced in the red hot shoes until she died.

The Juniper Tree by Grimm Brothers is another tale that leaps to my mind. It tells about a stepmother who kills her stepson and fed his remains to his father. Evil? And she was crushed by a millstone at the very end. Violent, bloody, and the kids who read it loves it.

Do you know the French version of Red Riding Hood, Little Miss Hood was not saved by a hunter. She did a striptease to escape, and the kids lapped it up.

Han Christian Anderson's little mermaid never gotten her Prince, and she turned into sea foam at the break of dawn.

Have you all read about Bluebeard, the mass serial killer of all his wives who keeps the dead bodies in the cellar preserved?

The original Pinnochio was hanged for his mischievious deeds.

You know about the Frog Prince, where the princess has to kiss the frog and the frog turned into a Prince? In the original tale, the princess had to chop the frog's head off.

The Red Shoes by Han Christian Anderson was about a vain girl who wore her red shoes to church and did not pay attention. One day the shoes started walking by themselves with her still in them. A soldier managed to help her and chopped off both her feet. Filled with regret, she wanted to go to church, but the red shoes with the bloody chopped feet barred her way.

In the 3 Little Pigs, the last remaining pig boiled and killed the wolf.

Not all tales are tales of pure goodness. There are the evil that lurks under every goodness. Not all tales are of happy, androgenous elves (Legolas) and child wizards (Potter) and evil gods (Eddings). There are the mysteries that we could never understand, legends that we could not comprehend. For people who reads the fantasy genre, think Raymond E. Fiest's FAIRIE TALE. It's a fantasy story, which scared the hell out of me the first time I read. Fairies that hunts you, fantastical beasts that hides in the shadows and wait for your soul. In ancient mythology, fairies are not like Tinkerbell from Walt Disney's Peter Pan. They are mischievious creatures, full of selfish pride and cruelty. They dance in the moonlight and wield enchantments that seduce men to them.

So you see, watching El laberinto del fauno made me recall those days of dark magic and creatures that are neither good nor evil, and filled with twists that IS very obvious, but yet you doubt yourself, and you will then be awaken like it was a spell and you wonder, is it all real, or just a fantasy?

Fantasy movie or not, this is not a movie that you will take your younger siblings too. I have read some pretty strange reviews about people who was not expecting the violence (read the rating next time, idiots). This is a violent movie (18-PL in M'sia), and the blood and gore even made me flinch. When I watched the movie, the sadism and unfairness displayed in the reality was a stark wake up call to what the world we live in today is about - a world where the good and innocent dies for no reason at all. I will not spoil the story here, but Wikipedia has a pretty good plot outline complete with spoilers and all.

The first thing when I watch the movie was to remind myself that this is not a Hollywood movie, this is not a movie in the familiar American-sense. This is a Spanish movie, and you have to know that the Spanish is very different from the Americans, so you are not supposed to expect something you will usually expect from the Americans. The Spaniards are a whole different group with different culture and standards. The men are stiff, proud and unforgiving, the women tough yet knows that their place below men. Some plot lines may not make sense to you, but to the Spaniards, they apparently do.

The plot is pretty straight, it is like trying to watch 2 movies at one time - a fantasy and a war story, and it is pretty disconcerting at times. But when you watch the ending, you grin to yourself and say, "Happy ending..." and then you pause, "...I think." But is it a happy ending? Because when I finally off my comp for the night after watching it, I was left with a gut-wrenching feeling of doubt. What if it was not real, what if it was all in her head... What if the ending displayed was just a tale and a dream...

And then the horror sets in, and the dismay... was it really a happy ending? Or not?

And like the ending that was one of the few open endings in movies I have watched, I will leave this part of the post as that.


Next movie is:



















Trailer:


Don't let the trailer fake you. It is like in Madagascar, where the funniest parts are everything you see in the trailer and nothing else. Same in this movie, the fantasy part seen in the trailer is every fantasy part in the movie, which is only one-third of the movie. Do not go there expecting something like the land of Narnia. I think Disney is trying to sell this movie for a fantasy movie like Narnia, but be warned, the fantasy part is very little, and I thought it was only an ok movie if not for how the main character managed to draw me into her world of imagination.

My Summary:
Jesse is a boy in school who is a bit of a wimp. He gets bullied around and never stood up for himself or his younger sister. He is the only son in a family of 4 girls and his family is really short on funds. His mother loves the girls and being the only son, he has tons of chores to do. His talent is art, but his father disapproves of it. Leslie is the new girl in school, and being new, was the perfect target of bullying. The only difference between Jesse and Leslie is that Leslie dares to fight back. Being loners, both of them became friends and Jesse discovers Leslie's power of imagination, and together they created the world of Terabithia.

This movie is based on a book of the same name by Katherine Paterson and the plot is pretty straightforward. (Come on, it is a kid's movie). Critics were pretty angry about how Disney marketed the product and thought that the kids were not prepared for such an intensed movie.

The only thing that made it intense was the way the main characters act. Just by being herself, I could identify myself with her, the fun loving, hyperactive, over-imaginative kid. What I love about this movie is that it reminds me on being a kid again and letting my imagination run wild. Imagine the unbelievable and believe it, and these things will come true.

Leslie: Just close your eyes, and keep your mind wide open.

I used to be able to do that, to just let my imagination flow into my surroundings. I was a tiger with wings, and I was captured and angry about it. I was a mountain climber, and my beds and book shelves were the Mountains of Haevenia. I drew and wrote about dragons with ten heads, thousands of knights battling riding on flying unicorns and gryphons. The cobra was the signet of Clan Assylaria and the gryphon was the coats of arm of their archrival Clan Leonadar (And this was before Harry Potter even existed).

I brought my fantasies to school. I was a dinosaur in my school courtyard, a T-Rex that goes around stomping on mud castles. I renamed every part of my school like it was my best friend's and my personal world. I look out of the window of my classroom and imagine a dangerous jungle out there, with teachers as tigers coming to get me, and I was ready for them. I remembered I was once a priest with a black dictionary as a bible and I somehow married my wife to three other girls... hmmm. And I was a butler to my friend who has a secret identity...

I used to envy my brother who can write compositions and karangan about monsters and fighter planes when he is Form 3!! I would tell him, "For goodness sake, grow up!" and yet inside I envy that his mind never grew up. Cos if my mind remains naive and ignorant, I can write things that I want to and never care what my readers think about.

But now, having swallowed all the cheap teen flicks and lousy Hollywood movies has really damped my imagination. I used to pride myself of reading tons and tons of books, with an imagination that is as vast as infinity. But the thing about reading is, the more I read, the more I find myself copying. I think that even if you come up with original plots, ideas start seeping in from all the other books you've read and somehow you'll find yourself implementing them in. I mean, look at other writers, the trolls, the giants, the gods, aren't they all written by someone else before?

Quidditch does not count. I created underwater rugby (which is before I even saw Final Fantasy X's blitzball).

Take for example the kid who wrote Eragon at the age of 15. Big deal, my friends and I have written since we were 10. We just never finished and published. But that is beside the point. Look at Eragon. Notice the similarity between that book and Eddings and E Fiest and Tolkien and countless other books?

I tried creating a character of my own, with me as the basis of creation. (The main character of my very first sin).

14 year old female child genius who has a Honours degree in Computer and Hardware Engineering and currently on holiday before finishing her degree in Acturial Science. Her father is a Senior Chief of Research Team AURIS of the United States Military, Science Division. His team created and developed the Auris Medius Communicating Device (AMCOD) (I later found out that the game Metal Gear Solid called it Codec with a similar working technics) which is a communication device imbedded into the bones of the middle ear and coupled with a transmitter on the vocal chords. Her mother is a nano-analyst with a psychology degree and is part of the NANO team with her father where they developed the nano-machines for use in the body. (Again, I was surprised at the similarity between my vision and Metal Gear).

My main character was injected with nano-machines when she was a child due to some serious accident and the accident left her deaf in one ear. Therefore her father restructed the bones of her middle ear and implanted the AMCOD into it. Her whole body is now part of a walking computer as the nanomachines dissolves in the blood stream to produce electroconductivity and used to carry electrical signal through the body, and it is connected 24/7 via satellit to KINGDOM - the most powerful AI in the world. The main processing unit on her body is a small processor barely larger than an IPOD shuffle (it gets smaller everytime I describe her) and she carries it around. The monitor is her specially designed spectacles and input is done via voice activation or a mini holographic-sensor keyboard which is actived by her watch.

She by no means is free, she is a test subject for both the AMCOD and nanomachines and a property of the United States. But she goes through life like any other teenager, She has a boyfriend, two best friends and is one of the best thiefs and gamblers around. She is slightly schizophrenic where she turns really violent when her other side take over. Her grandfather is a Master Thief, her 2 godfathers are the Triad Chief of Celestial Dragon Triad in Hong Kong and Chief of the London Gangs. And amazingly, her father's two best friends who have watched her grow up are the Chief Commissioner of the Scotland Yard and the owner of Monte Carlo, Monaco. She has an uncle who is the Commissioner of the Interpol.

When you design a character to your liking, might as well go all out.

And again, notice the similarity between my pet character and several other characters in books that is scattered around the world? So I thought to myself, if I can't come up with original plot, why not I take all the plots of the books I have read and squeeze them together into a plot I have in mind?

So now I'm currently working on a piece of work which is my epic work with some other side dishes when I'm having writer's block with it. Epic makes it sound so big and important, but it is just a past time. Fingers crossed that I do not tear it apart again before I even finish 50% of it.


Coming back to the post before I started rambling (I tend to do that when I start talking about my hobby), blogging isn't really my cup of tea. I do not like writing about myself (oh really?), I do not like writing about the world around me... but I guess all of us have to start somewhere. Until I can come up with posts as thought-provoking and intense as most of my batchmates', I will keep my little dream to myself.


So there, 2 different movies, yet so similar in so many senses. Watch them, and see for yourself. Going off to download more movies. 300 is out next right?

If this is all a dream, don't wake me up.
- Cloud, Final Fantasy VII

We passed by on 1:25 AM |

Road paved on 3:51 AM |

Update

I met with an accident, broken my ribs and cracked my skull. Now typing from the hospital, feeling really bad.

Oh, Happy April Fool by the way.

On to the main core of the post:

We just finished celebrating Raj's 24th birthday. We had the M203 people over to our house and threw a surprise party for him. And we had steamboat.

Now, you would be wondering how the hell did we prepare for steamboat without him knowing about it. We were boiling the soup with pork (OMG, tomyam + soup + pork = HEAVENLY DELICIOUS), and he even helped us with it. Things are going pretty funny right now. We hid the fishball and stuff on the balcony to thaw, and he saw it and asked us about it and we just replied "Just thawing."

I don't think he suspect anything just yet. He thinks that we are preparing meals for the rest of the week. Then about 7pm, Daniel had to go fetch Phang to our house and it was up to me to bluff him.

ME: Hey, Raj, what time are you planning to have dinner?
Raj: Up to you guys la. I don't mind.
ME: Uh... we are having the church group over for dinner. That's what the soup and fishball was for.

And you should see how he blew up. He was so angry that I was cowering before him. His voice was raised, his eyes flashing like one of the demons in his World of Warcraft. He was demanding why we did not tell him earlier, and he would be in his room the whole night and only call him out when we are done.

And he slammed his door at me. Sob sob.

When Phang came, Daniel loudly introduced him as John and we were giggling as the rest slowly trickled in. You should have seen him when we surprised him. It was hilarious and he was so about to kill me for tricking him. Man, I should have won an Oscar for it.

Anyway,

We bought him 2 months worth of World of Warcraft which cost $42.50. That's freaking shit alot for a game! And he starves himself just to afford to pay for this. Gods.


Okay, I am in my first week of my GP posting. The one week holiday has already flew by without even I realising it. So what have I accomplished in this 1 week of holiday??

I got myself hooked onto EBay. Haha,I know Ebay has been around ever since time memorial (maybe a few months after the internet was established which was back in the 1940s I think, haha).

Well, Richard first started it, with him buying a Nokia 8800 which worth AUD$550 (RM1750). It was supposed to arrive a week ago, well, supposed, because it never came. Three words from me: He is screwed!

And so I attempted to start my own buying business. You would have thought Richard's lesson would be a lesson for me too. But NNOO. Daniel's trying to bid for a car, so why can't I bid as well? So far I've bidded for a mahjong set (which I lost to some idiot who bought it for AUD90), I've been outbid-ed for a book that was sold at AUD1.25 (WTH?!). I won my Hannibal Rising (hardcover, new) for $13, which is half the market price in Malaysia after conversion. I am going to pick it up on Monday. And I'm still currently in highest bidder position for Monopoly Limited Edition and Risk. Can't wait to finally start playing.

I miss those days of Monopoly and Risk with the batch. Remember the days when Yean Koon and Daniel conquered the South and North Hemisphere respectfully, and CK and me conquering the monopoly board. Well, at least I have 3 others Risk kaki in my house. Lucky me.


Talking about the car, our landlord loaned us his car for free. And to make things great, he is on a holiday for 2 months, means no rent payment until 2 months. Woohoo!!!

Richard: In the end still have to pay also...


I have not tell you guys about my housemates' gambling addiction, have I? It all started with Daniel's need to find a way to fund his car, and he started buying $1 scratchies. Now these scratchies are very difficult to explain,

9 values of money ranging from $2 to $50,000 is printed on the scratchie and if we managed to scratch out 3 of the same value, we win that value. Yes, if we scratch out 3 $50,000 we win the grand prize of $50,000. Stupid right? Yet, we kept on tossing $1 in hope to getting that big amount.

And then there is the POWERBALL and LOTTO, where it is like buying our 4D, TOTO and MAGNUM back home.

It is very frustrating, yet exhilirating at the same time. The rush of blood in trying to win something, it is like playing roulette and hoping against hope. Haha. Gambling addiction is a mental illness, btw.

And then realising the futility and dampened by the NO NEED for car anymore due to our kind landlord, the guys stopped gambling. As for me, nothing wrong in indulging myself once in the while, especially when I'm on a winning streak, right?


What else have I been doing?

Ooh, yes, playing Final Fantasy VII on Peesp. I've gotten Peesp to start playing PSX games quite some time ago. But too bad I could not find my FFVII discs, so I had to download em. And I finally got em and I have been berbond-bond with Peesp, making sweet sweet love.

Some of my friends think that I am crazy for playing an RPG all over again. Well, if the story line is great and I have a help of a cheater/trainer, I get to set the number of EXP (Experience Points = points needed to level up) after every level. So no more hassle of leveling up. Haha. And playing the game reminds me of why this is one of the greatest game I've played. Well, nothing beats my Balthier of FFXII, but FFVII was my first RPG, so I was pretty easily impressed back then.

And I finished the game yesterday, and now on to berbonding with Squall of FFVIII (again with cheats, haha). It is pretty cool, playing Peesp while waiting for the next patients in GP. Even my GP was impressed by it.


And when my thumbs are sore of playing, I go on to my next past time:


I sailed the expansive net as a pirate.
Yo ho ho, a pirate's life for me.

Yup, pirating movies off the net. I'm not the one who usually download movies/animes from the net. I usually reserve my bandwidth for my mangas. But with the expensive prices of DVD and cinema prices, I thought to myself, what the hell, 1 or 2 movies will not kill. And I ended up with 4 dvds of movies (that's about 4 movies per DVD) and 3 DVDs of anime. Yes, I know some people who download much much more than me, but 7 x 4.7gigabytes is a huge achievement in less than a month. And yes, my housemates are killing me because we have a 60GB limit per month.

Anyway, I finally uncovered 2 movies that touched a chord in me. Movies usually don't move me. Jack died in Titanic, millions of girls cried, I laughed at how Rose was so fat and took up the whole piece of wood. People walked away inspired by the Forrest Gump, I came out going 'Huh?'. People were ranting on and on about how good Lord of the Rings was, I was "Hmm... so-so... I think."

So you see, I have a heart of stone, I don't get inspired movies.

But yet this 2 movies touched something in me. The first was recommended to me by my sister, the other was a Disney movie. Haha, never thought a Disney movie would inspire me. But I will talk about these movies in my next post. Now very lazy.

Now on to my GP. For my Mental Health Rotation, I was posted in Princess Alexandra Hospital. My GP? Is right opposite the hospital. I mean, it is about time I move somewhere else man. Argh... but instead I chose somewhere right opposite a hospital. Why would some people go to the GP if they can just hop over to the emergency department of the hospital for more serious cases?

What about my GP? My GP is a large man with a bushy beard and a round tummy and he is so lovable because he is like Santa Claus. And he is pretty eager to teach, unlike the GPs we have back home in Malaysia. And I get to give jabs. Haha. Can't wait to learn how to suture and cut people up.

My bus timetable to the clinic is super unreliable and worst still, if I miss the one and only bus, I have to wait 1 hour for the next bus. Thank God behind my house is the train station, so at least I have a back up plan.

Exam results going to be out next week. Fingers crossed and Happy Easter.

Oh, the starting paragraph is just an April Fool's joke if no one got it.

"Somebody, better call the Doctor!!!
- Ready 2 Rumble Boxing

We passed by on 3:51 AM |