NEWS!!

I just love Malaysian news. It so brilliantly captures the worst of our society.

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/9/28/nation/20090928201614&sec=nation

"Bruno" is banned. Not really unexpected, but look at the minister's comments. "The board should allow realism to be portrayed" . Well, he obviously has no inkling what this movie is about. "Bruno" is a disgustingly made film with no class and plenty of toilet humour involving body parts. "The board should not also throw the movie out without giving the submitting party a chance to explain themselves for scenes which may be deemed objectionable ". Dude, they were touting it as a sequel to "Borat", one of the most crass movies ever made. Full-frontal penises all over the screen, that's what they are banning. If the distributor is not making any noise, then stop complaining. Either that, or just revamp the system, which is well within your rights,minister.

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/9/28/nation/20090928094114&sec=nation

There's a Polygamy Club now? Really? Yay! "For the one-third of the population that isn't Muslim, polygamy is unlawful." Discrimination, anyone? And it tells the tale of a female breadwinner whose jobless husband requested another wife. Shameless, much? Honestly, be a man. You don't have the balls to feed your family and you want to marry a divorcee with children to take care of her using your wife's money? She should have divorced the guy immediately. Personally, there is nothing wrong with polygamy if practised in the correct spirit. Problem is, it is too open to abuse by horny old men, excuse my stereotyping. Not to mention, in the spirit of equality, a woman should be allowed to marry more than one guy. Why don't we all get married in a huge circle of love?

*huff* *puff* Is the dust gone yet?

Wow.

I'm surprised I don't see virtual dust on this pathetic excuse for a blog. Oh well, guess I'm not cut out for regular airing of laundry, dirty or not.

Another semester has officially concluded. Unsatisfactory results have come out, and now the next pre-sem hustle and bustle is about to start.

This has been a semester of trials and tribulations, friendships formed and nearly broken. A semester of slacking and cramming, resolutions and frustration.

Sometimes I feel like a rope in a tug-o'-war match. I'm a uni student, shouldn't I be studying? But what happened to enjoying life? I've become so addicted to living (i.e enjoying myself) I don't want to quit and submerge myself in the sea of attempted scholastic excellence. Yet that comes at a price, as reflected in my grades, and, unfortunately, the piece of paper which I will graduate with will determine my future.

But is my future doomed to be static? Study, graduate, work, occasional promotions, start a family, die? What can we really determine for ourselves, and what is determined by other powers? I'm a humanist, I believe humans can achieve whatever they set their minds to, yet I find myself lacking a drive to excel, and the will to challenge the norms.

Then I ask, what makes you human? The ability to think? But animals have demonstrated an ability to learn, not to mention certain animals are born with an innate sense of how to do certain things, which humans do not have. Take the bee, for instance. It performs a dance to inform its hive mates that there is a rich source of food. Did it learn to dance? Was it taught to dance? If it knew how to dance from birth, does that not mean that it is more intelligent as a species? Does a bird learn to fly, or is it taught? Or was it born with the knowledge of how to fly, yet had to wait till physical maturity to do it?

So what makes a human, human? Emotion? Elephants bury and mourn their dead, what makes our emotions stronger than theirs?

Physical power? Don't make me laugh. Based on physical characteristics alone, "the horse is swifter, the elephant stronger, the butterfly more beautiful" (Inherit The Wind).

So why are we now the dominant species? We breed slower than most animals, we are definitely not the most physically dominant of species, what makes us superior? Our "civilization"?

But civilization imposes restrictions, limits behaviour. Can you walk out naked in public anymore? Not unless you are 5 or have a wish to be incarcerated.

We consider ourselves to have achieved a level of intelligence beyond that of the other billion species that inhabit this planet. But won't that intelligence cause our doom? Fettered by arrogance, conditioned by society, we presume dominance, going s0 far as to claim that the ultimate power created us in His image. So our collective self-destructive instincts lead us into further "development", leading us along the path to destroying the miracle of life granted to this planet, blinding us to the destruction we have wrought, and continue to inflict, upon Gaia and its inhabitants.

No matter how globalised the world claims to be, it is still as fragmented as ever. Dictators rule in several countries, authoritarians move towards democracy, democracies move toward socialism, socialists move to authoritarians, all this traps us in a cycle of governmental confusion. Never at any point in its history, has humanity ever united. Never has there been a universal consensus for any issue, unless it be the existence of gravity.

Our fragile social constructs are moving into virtuality, lessening the ties we have to nature, further fragmenting ourselves. Artificial constructs now rule our lives; money is power, the Internet is our saviour. Why do we need nature? For the gifts that we so arrogantly claim for ourselves and ourselves only. To provide fuel for our artificial means of holding a semblance of society together.

I want to return to our roots, to a simpler existence, to divest myself of the myriad demands of society. Yet I find myself too cultured, too ingrained, too addicted to the various constructs I have denounced as artificial. No longer is Nature sacred, it is a distraction from the new gods of the modern world.

One day, I hope to just..... I dunno, be a tribesman in Africa or the Amazon or something, just live life as it was lived a million years ago, to rid myself of modernity and enjoy a life with less comfort, but more realness.

I certainly wasn't expecting to produce a philosophical post, not when I was bemoning my poor grades. Maybe I should have been an Arts student. *sigh* Unfulfiled fantasies, dreams departed from reality, imagination bounded by ingrained attitudes.

My 18th Valentine's day spent alone, and I don't really care. Somehow that in itself sounds really sad.

Been chilling out, just searching for album art for my iTunes library so I don't get "unknown album" icons popping out on cover flow. I must say Apple's stuff looks good, hogs RAM and still has bugs. Lots of 'em. Both my iPod and my sister's had exactly the same problem, the iPods completely hanged. We (read:I) bought them in November about 2 weeks apart, I had my problem 2 days after I started using it, and my sister just recently had the same problem. The iPod decides to stop responding to anything, and connecting it to the computer doesn't help. Solution? Let it run out of battery and connect it the next morning, i.e. it goes out of commission for a few hours. Don't know whether this problem is endemic to only 4th gen 16GB iPod nanos or not, but it's still a little disappointing (not to mention panic-causing).

Then of course piracy isn't rewarded by iTunes. No way to use the iTunes store service to search for album art, usually there's little or no album info on the file, thus a lot more work involved in getting good album and artist info and album art. And it's especially a nightmare for Chinese songs with unreadable fonts, lack of Wikipedia entries etc.

But I'm pretty satisfied, most of my 2500 song library is up to standard. And I realised I've got 2 versions of Sweet Home Alabama (one the original by Lynyrd Skynyrd and the other a cover ostensibly by Green Day), Dani California by the Red Hot Chili Peppers and All Summer Long by Kid Rock that sample and rework the classic. Plus Terry Jacks' and Westlife's Seasons in the Sun (which incidentally was from a French song Le Moribund which i can't find) and 2 versions of Leaving on a Jet Plane. And 3 versions of Change the World, all of which feature Eric Clapton with different artistes. So many duplicates-lah.......

Then I find that I really only like listening to about 500 of those songs. I've got stuff like 50 Cent, Kanye West, 30 Seconds to Mars, AC/DC and various soundtracks that I barely listen to. And too many Rascal Flatts, Snow Patrol and Black-Eyed Peas songs. A dilemma, here. Though if I need to 30 Seconds to Mars would be the first to go. A Beautiful Lie was rubbish. The guitars were drowned out by over-enthusiastic bass and drums. Throw in a vocalist (Jared Leto) who has a limited range and loves screaming with an absolute lack of melody and you get crap. They can't hold a candle to the Arctic Monkeys, Muse, Franz Ferdinand, Foo Fighters, or even the formulaic Fall Out Boy. Bah. And to think a friend actually recommended this.

I'm pretty happy with my current library, but I think any additions in the near future will be more likely to be older songs. Songs that have evergreen melodies, or are classics in their own right. Songs like Love Me Tender (can't believe I don't have that). I've got a feeling that most new songs are decent, but are becoming louder and louder, with a beat, but with less focus on a simple melody. And anything with potential to be great becomes so overplayed that it loses all novelty and attraction. Like say maybe David Archuleta's Crush. I heard that song 4 times in 2 hours on the car radio. It's okay, but not that deserving. No song is that deserving, simply because no song deserves to be overplayed.

And to think that 2 years ago I barely listened to any music.

Then there's stuff I wouldn't have on my playlist even if you handed me an autographed copy. Stuff like Fahrenheit, . I find that most of these bands sound the same, all have pretty boys/girls who can barely sing in tune, who all have dance choreographers coaching them as opposed to having a smidgen of dance talent. Good thing about Western boy/girl bands, most of them flop and dissolve after the 1st album (not talking about the 90s here, obviously)

And Mandopop is seriously down the drain now. Random people keep coming out of the woodwork with coloured hair and marketing agents. All formulaic and pathetic. Can't anyone come up with something other than R&B or ballads? Seriously, man, you would have thought that people would stop supporting such crap by now. Leehom becoming a rocker? Epic Fail. Rock doesn't mean funny lyrics with a guitar playing in the background. Rock means having a melody behind all the bass, with guitar solos meant to be guitar solos, not for you to sing along to. One of the lines from his new single goes: "What's wrong wiiiiiiith me" Yeah I want to know too. At least Jay Chou has some variety on his albums, with a rock number and a rap number along with his R&B, which is still of pretty darn high quality.

Wow. This must be my longest blog post ever. And I could make it longer by throwing in some recommendations and my Valentine's Day playlist. I think I'll just stick with my recommendations.

Pop/Rock----------- Franz Ferdinand FTW. Beats Gavin DeGraw and Good Charlotte anytime.
Blues----------------Eric Clapton. No way you can go wrong
Mandopop---------- Do I need to say this? JAY CHOU
Mandarin hip-hop -- Da Mouth. Interesting band. No match for the Black-Eyed Peas yet, but decent
Metal--------------- Disturbed's pretty good, not too heavy. Dragonforce for awesome guitarwork, Nightwish for good melodies
Country------------- Keith Urban's good. Rascal Flatts for lighter stuff.
Comedy------------- Weird Al Yankovic. The ultimate shoo-in. Amish Paradise and White & Nerdy are funny as

Update (at last)

Arrrrgggggggghhhhhhhhh

Maybe I should just delete this poor excuse of a blog which is currently only functioning as a dust-gatherer.

I'm just frustrated with a lot. 1st 2 weeks of work was promising, now it just sucks. Got nothing to do AT ALL. Which is why I'm here typing this out.

Throughout these few weeks there have been a few things I have a bone to pick with. Let's see:

1) In a time of economic disaster comparable to the Great Depression, our government implements a stimulus plan. Yay!! It's going to save us all!! Not. Only 70% of the stimulus has been freed up for use, in other words 70% of the plan is actually in cash. And the problems? Most of the stimulus is shady and given to Government departments to implement projects. What projects? Nobody knows. And most likely they will be construction projects which wont help a bit because its not generating the flow of cash needed. The economic problem is mainly caused by a lack of credit, so what's the solution? Obviously to get money moving again instead of stagnating in bank accounts. Reduce taxes, possibly duties as well, give loans to businesses that need them, give loans to new startups, pump our R&D (hopefully our unis are up to scratch), etc-lah. But nooooo........, we get money flushed down the black hole that is the Class F contractors' mouths. And a mysterious 2nd stimulus to be announced.

2) Party-hopping is the in thing now, it seems. Limited to only the upper echelons of society (read: politicians in power), thus depriving us poor citizens of the chance to keep up with the latest trends, is blatant disregard of the principles of proper governance. Who knows who their assemblyman or MP is? Malaysians vote for parties, not people, unless you're a screw-upper like Datuk Seri SV, who helps out the opposition as much as they can. Democracy, my foot. Penalising any member who does not conform to the party's stand means that only the opinions of the party leaders count and everyone else is there to make up the numbers.

3) Victoria's on fire. Hope it gets better.

Work's only good for giving me time to do a few things I never really got down to doing, like downloading the Inauguration Day edition of Spiderman with Obama on the cover. Also I finished writing 2 passages of fantasy, one of which is still on paper, so I can't be bothered putting it down here. Might just expand one or both of them to short stories or even novels, if I get the inspiration. Here's one (written in 5 minutes, proud of that although it sounds like I'm ripping off Philip Pullman):


“The knife appeared as if it was merely some toy of some nobleman’s scion, but upon closer inspection one realizes that it is a weapon with no equal, save Excalibur itself. The handle was intricately carved, runes etched into the ebony forming a grip for the wielder. The blade was silver, with delicate designs running its length, bright as the day it was forged although it was a thousand years old. One’s eye would then be drawn to its edge, so fine it appeared to meld into the air itself. But most of all, one could feel that this knife could slice its way through anything its master wanted, be it god, man or demon. Only one person had ever mastered this weapon, though many had wielded it, and that person was the great hero, Ainion the Fair. ”

There the wizened storyteller paused to draw breath. The sudden lull, in which no sound could be heard save the breathing of the listeners, was short-lived, with a fount of questions from the eager young devourers of tales bursting forth.

“Ainion? I thought he wielded a sword?”

“Did Ainion use this to slay the dragon?”

But above all, “Tell us more!”

Fuel

When I came back to Malaysia, one of the first things that I saw in the papers was talk of a floor price for petrol. HOW IN HELL IS THIS F***ING HALF-BRAINED EXCUSE OF A PLAN GOING TO BENEFIT ANYONE??

The obvious problem at hand is the fuel subsidy. It should never have happened, but now that it has, there is no viable way to regain the funds sunk into the subsidy. Now that fuel prices are similar enough to the actual price, it is time to remove it, once and for all. Even a first-year economics student can tell you that a subsidy's side-effects are negative for the economy as a whole as it involves a transfer of benefits, with a little lost in transition.

And instead of removing the subsidy for good, we might even have a floor price. What hare-brained thought of that? If that person is in charge of our financial policy, I would be very, very afraid for our country. A floor price means that whenever the price of fuel drops below that set amount, the government or the oil companies gain the difference. There is no limit to the heights that oil prices will reach though. Whatever benefits a subsidy has would no longer exist. The fuel market would be restricted in a way that benefits only the government or the oil companies. Neither of whom I would trust.

One argument I've heard is that it is to protect the petrol station owners as they would have bought their oil at a higher price. Screw that, I say. With a proper system in place with the necessary regulations, a free market for petrol is not unworkable. Have you heard of Weighted Average Cost? Use that, idiots. Weight the cost of inventory, work out a suitable profit margin, and sell your products. Of course that would only work in the case that THE PETROL PRICE IS NOT FIXED.

Rawr. Idiots.

Rambling

Well I obviously haven't been taking very good care of my blog have I? Feeling a little guilty now, problem is that I will only blog when I feel strongly enough about something. Even now I'm feeling guilty about updating because I'm not really thinking about anyhting in particular now.

Enough about guilt then. Onwards!

Back home in Malaysia now (Hurray!! :)) Mixed feelings about that though. When I left IH, I had the privilege of being in the company of very, very good friends. Amazing how a year is enough to create such strong relationships, not that I have not experienced it before (thank you SAM). One, I may never see again. One, I will be living with next year. One, I will be gaming with next year. And one whom I hope I will have the chance to listen to expounding upon his subject of thought again. I will miss your company.

Then again I now know why Malaysia is my home. Awesome friends, the safeness of being close to your family........ things that could never be replaced in Melbourne (or can it?)

Which somehow reminds me of the recent anti-yoga fatwa. When I was out today I counted 5 adverts promoting yoga centers, more than any other type of advert, even cars. The delicious irony........

Oh dear God above........... the slowness of the Internet connection here............. 4mbps is the BEST streamyx has to offer, even then its for companies only, the best households get is a measly 1 Mbps connection............ Not good enough, especially when I have been living with a connection 10 times faster and more stable than this (albeit P2P limited= No pirating....... riiiiiiiight)

Need to go shopping!! Melbourne's largest shopping center, 1 hour (by train) away from the CBD and supposedly the largest in the Southern Hemisphere, is nowhere near as large as my neighbourhood shopping center, Sunway Pyramid, and is 100 times smaller than Mid-Valley Megamall. Even if it's just for the feeling of being in a shopping mall, I need to go shopping!!

Just received news that along with three other really great people, I shall be staying in a premium room in IH. Great going guys! Although the bitchiness caused by the competition to get those rooms may not have been worth it for some, not to mention the feeling that some who did get it did not deserve it. Sigh........ enough for now I think........

Was wondering about my friends' relationships lately. With many of us flying off to every which where, those with relationships were forced to rethink and decide on new status for the relationship. One was flying to the US with a girlfriend going to Australia. Another was going to the US, same as his partner, but to different universities in different states. Yet another was staying in Malaysia while his girlfriend went to Sydney.

Would long-distance relationships work? Two of the above couples seem to think not. Considering the latter couple got together a couple of days before the girl went off to Sydney, I think that counts as a perfect score as the relationship had not been consolidated yet. That outcome will be worth watching.

A fourth friend broke up with his first girlfriend after coming here, then hooked up with another girl while in Malaysia for the 1 month hols. I won't reveal more details here but he seems to be extremely infatuated with his new girlfriend, so much so I really think this will have a lifelong effect on him.

Anyways, a fifth friend thinks that long distance relationships will be a true test of the couple's feelings for each other. To me, that may have some grain of truth in it, however in order to maintain and develop a budding relationship over an extended period of time with no physical meetings is a hard, hard task requiring massive amounts of effort. It may be possible, but the strain of a long distance relationship may in fact push the two parties apart, especially if the relationship had only just begun.

Still, it makes me wonder what could have been.........

I've been talking a fair bit with a new guy at IH. He's an introverted science student who seems to have rather strong views that disagree with mine. Sadly, I don't see him convincing me of anything anytime soon.

Issue 1: Existence of God. Me: Freethinker that believes in a higher power but does not subscribe to any religion. Reason: Intelligent design has to be behind human intelligence and the creation of the universe. Him: Claims to be agnostic but seems to be more atheist. Spouted lots of facts about evolution which to me did not explain the reason behind creation itself.

Issue 2: Malaysian politics. Me: Don't give a f*** anymore, however still supports the BN as the only viable multiracial ruling party. Him: DAP supporter because of socialist beliefs. Unfortunately does not realize the political power of the 65% Malay population. And that the DAP has not done anything concrete for anyone's betterment. Although the BN is corrupted, at least they are doing something.

I'm not sure how many more of those conversations I can take. The more I argue, the more I realize how set in my ways I am, and I also realize that I am not ready to let my views go. That's in my more reflective moments. In my more conceited moments, he's an idiot.

And I realize how attached I am to my group of friends. I find myself unable to join in most conversations at the dinner table now, which is sort of sad, considering I used to pride myself on the ability to make relevant contributions to discussions. Or perhaps I just do not find the conversations interesting.

There's a guy I find myself becoming more and more irritable towards. This is becoming worse and worse everytime I listen to a conversation he's taking part in. He like to think of himself as "cool", yet his actions are just plain retarded. If being retarded were cool, the word cool would be used as an insult. Here's an example of his more brilliant moments. With a microwave in perfect working condition 5 metres away, he puts a bowl of cheese and ham in the toaster to melt the cheese, with the bowl, not just the contents. On a night of a day with continuous rain, he is the one person that does not wear at least 2 layers on an outing. At the tram stop, he complains of the cold. When asked why he did not wear a jacket, he replies, "I didn't know it would be this cold". Dude, this is Melbourne, not Malaysia. When it rains here, it's cold for the rest of the day. And you didn't know this after 6 months? And of course there's his (really, really bad) American accent. If you can't do something, realize it when you fail, and either get better, or DON"T DO IT.

Maybe this is why I am becoming more and more introverted. I am surrounded by idiots.

On a different note, I read a friend's blog post where he touched on Malaysian tertiary education and social policies that are race-centric. In all fairness, Malaysian tertiary education is doing badly because of rubbish selection policies. An absolute lack of transparency and apparently arbitrary distribution of the nation's best STPM scholars among "universities" do not contribute in any way to a university's reputation or achievements. I am lucky that my parents are sufficiently well-to-do that they can afford to give me a choice of where to further my education. When a country sends its best students abroad on full scholarships when it has its own supposedly well-developed tertiary education system, it says a lot about the confidence the country has in itself.

And on socially biased policies, it is perhaps ethically justifiable. There has, and always has been an element of bias in any policy. Take scholarships for example. Between an intelligent young person whose family can afford an education, and a not-so-intelligent one who can't, who should the scholarship be given to? Obviously the intelligent one, in which case the policy is biased against the poor. But if its given to the poorer student, it's biased against the intelligent and perhaps more deserving. Meritocracy has been implemented (I hope), so stop whining. Has it occurred to these policy's detractors that the policies may not be racially biased, but that the majority of beneficiaries are of a certain race because they are in the majority, and hence statistically speaking, are more likely to benefit? This is racial arrogance speaking. Not everyone of your own race is competent and deserves a scholarship, not everyone of other races are incompetent and undeserving. True racism is evident not in Malaysia, but rather in countries such as Zimbabwe, where people's possessions are taken from them on account of skin colour. Malaysia, in comparison, is a paragon of unity. As a nation, we have to realize that the only way forward is to stop looking at our differences, and look at what we share as a nation, how far we have progressed together, and how much farther we could have gone without the spectre of racism hanging over our heads. Let bygones by bygones, and stop thinking that you deserve more. Make do with what you have, and make the best out of it. Do not be defeatist, but do not allow yourself to be oppressed. You may or may not deserve whatever hand you have been dealt, but you have to do the best you can with it. Or you don't deserve being dealt a hand in the first place.

I stand by the view I have expressed in a previous post: dictatorships are the most efficient governments, yet the only way for dictatorships to reach its full potential the dictator has to be an absolutely unbiased person, of which there is none.

First post in a loooooonnnnnnngggggggg time. It's not actually a good thing, just because I have another 400 words to go for my essay which is due tomorrow at 5pm and yet I'm writing this. Procrastination FTW!

So what inspired this sudden burst of blogging activity? A call from a friend to go to the common room to watch something on his laptop. Guess what it was? An amateur porn clip, made in Malaysia, with a very good camera, by Sunway college students, by a Johan and his Chinese girlfriend.

Apparently this video was leaked onto the Net, which is utterly stupid, even more so than posting it on the Net himself. If you don't want to embarrass yourself, bloody well keep it hidden and safe or others will do it for you.

But I digress. The focal point of the invite to watch the clip was not for me to identify the kids (that was the secondary objective), but rather to laugh at the incredibly funny things the girl said during the acts. If anyone's wondering "What's YJ, this really quiet nice guy doing commentating on porn?", please let me inform you that I do not know a single male above the age of 15 who has not watched porn. Anyway, with a really soppy love song blaring in the background, the girl stops performing oral sex on her boyfriend because her throat's too dry.

Wait a minute, that doesn't sound funny enough. Awwww..... guess you'll have to watch it to appreciate the joke.

Or maybe I've just been hanging around b-tards too long. For the unenlightened, 4-chan is an online forum and there's a board on it called b, for random stuff. And by random stuff it means anything that can't fit into the other boards, mostly remotely sex-related.

One of the most dedicated b-tards I know is a medical student, and she happens to laugh most randomly at certain stuff. Maybe that's the beauty of it, your mind becomes so corrupted that anything can be related to procreation and a joke about it.

Procrastinated enough I think, considering I've written more in 15 minutes for this blog post that I've written in my essay for 4 hours. March onwards, my friends, do not let the daunting mountain of work overwhelm you, for the long-awaited saviour of lives and banisher of stress is arriving in 4 days!! holidays soon!! :)

Batman

The Dark Knight is here! It is MADE of awesome. A very, very good movie, and well worth the ticket price, clocking in at 2.5 hours.

It was a little overhyped though. I mean, how is Heath Ledger's performance worthy of an Oscar? True, he did do a very good job, but Jack Nicholson did one just as good 20 years ago, also as the Joker. But maybe all the movies released this year were so crap that this is the performance of the year.

I have to say that Christopher Nolan, the director is really faithful to the comic. Batman really is this dark hero, willing to do anything short of murder to achieve victory in his one man war against crime. By the way, Batman only used guns in the really early comics, something like the 1950s or so, and even then it was only for a couple of issues. One really minor thing was the Joker's origins, which were not really covered in the movie. And makeup? The only makeup the Joker is supposed to wear is to make sure he looks normal. Oh well, that's just me nitpicking as usual.

This movie drew a lot of inspiration from Batman: Year One and also The Killing Joke. The symbiotic relationship between Batman and the Joker is well documented in the latter. Batman has admitted that their relationship is a fatal one, that he was willing to try to escape it, but it seems as if they never will. Although the Joker is mad, he is neither stupid nor impractical. There have been many run-of-the-mill crimes that he committed, though he leaves a calling card of some kind. One example from A Death in the Family is the Joker replacing medical supplies that he stole with his lethal laughing gas. He tends to go for the spectacular, to fulfil his own ego. Both Ledger's and Nicholson's Jokers were very good, in that they managed to bring out different sides of the Joker. While Nicholson's was more slapstick, Ledger's dark humour is a little more to my liking.

What about Batman himself? In this movie, because of the focus on the Joker, there is less development of the Bruce Wayne/Batman character. Another one of my pet peeves. Then again, how much more could be squeezed into a movie 2.5 hours long?

GO WATCH HELLBOY!!

Hellboy 2: The Golden Army rocks!! Go and watch that movie. That's an order.

It was actually as good as the trailer promised, which is more than most films can boast of. You've got a rather likeable main character, humour, superb special effects, and best of all, Guillermo Del Toro as the director.

Have you ever watched El Laberinto Del Fauno (Pan's Labyrinth)? That was an incredibly good movie, surpassing all of Hollywood's pathetic attempts at fantasy (excluding LOTR, of course). Del Toro's fantastic creatures in that movie were dark, scary at times, yet felt right, as if all those could be real. His creations are the stuff of imagination, yet brought to life in such a way that one believes such creatures, if they existed, would look like that. His Prisoner of Azkaban was the best in the Harry Potter movies.

Some of the creatures in Hellboy 2: The Golden Army were evidently influenced by his work in Pan's Labyrinth. The Chamberlain of Bethmoora, for one, looks like the Pale Man in Pan's Labyrinth. I personally think that Hellboy's Death is also influenced by the Pale Man.

The action in the movie is really good. It is over the top, like just about every movie nowadays, but since it's done by otherworldly creatures anyway, it's forgiveable. And the action scenes aren't as drawn out as many other movies, making those scenes short and sweet.

At 2 hours long, with healthy doses of humour, action and good acting, and a fair storyline, this film is one of the best I've watched this year. And it's good value for money. Time to look for the Hellboy comics, methinks.

Efficient or Lazy?

My first semester university results just came out. As I've been telling people, they were slightly worse than expected. Of all subjects, I scraped a top grade on the subject I hated most, yet barely missed out on a top grade for my favourite. Why couldn't it be the other way around?

The arrogant little voice in my head has been berating me for not doing better, in fact I've been outdone by someone I never expected to beat me in a thousand years. I seem to be a bad loser, a worse loser than I thought I was. When I know I have the ability to beat someone, and I put in the effort so as to be able to achieve that objective, I expect nothing less of myself than total victory. It is when I actually put in the effort (which in itself is a rare occurrence), that I demand absolute, unquestionable proof of my superiority over others. However this usually only occurs only when my competition has proven worthy, that they are of a similar ability. When faced with tougher opponents I actually do not have quite the same amount of competitiveness. I guess that these people have already proved themselves superior to me in that area and I realize that I would be unable to defeat them. Also, when faced with inferior rivals I tend to be fairly complacent. I think this might be because of some inborn need for efficiency. Against superior competition, putting in effort is futile as I know I would be unable to overtake them anyway. Against inferior opponents, putting in effort is pointless as I already know the outcome. Hence only when faced with rivals of similar capability would I maximise my ability.

Of course, the above could also be attributed to sheer laziness. Why put in the effort at all, if I am so secure in the knowledge that I am more intelligent than most? Can't really think of any arguments for or against this point of view......... Fingers feeling heavy......... Why am I typing this?........ Zzzzzzzz........ *plonk**headfallsonkeyboard*

Of movies and CGI

Just came back from watching "Wanted" (the movie starring Angelina Jolie. No idea why people say she's hot. I think she's beautiful, certainly, but not hot)

The movie was okay..... Just the usual shoot em up movie, no real plot to speak of. Then there was that rip-off Star Wars moment. Not going to describe the scene but personally it was an insult to the viewer's intelligence. Then there are the ludicrous scenes where the impossible happens. Some how, after watching Shoot 'em up, no other movie can compare.

A bit sad, really, when I no longer feel these special effects are anything but special. I mean it's cool, but I just don't feel awed anymore. LOTR wasn't great because of the special effects, it was great because of a great script, great director and great storyline. Same for Spiderman (not including the 3rd one, that one sucked)

Or maybe that's because I have been reading too many comics (COMICS, not manga) for my own good. I've got something like 13 GB of comics now. Sadly Heath Ledger died, otherwise I'm pretty sure the Joker would reappear in the next Batman movie after The Dark Knight (the movie isn't out yet, I'm basing this on the assumption that the villain will lose and die. Also, I'm hoping for Two-Face to appear, either in The Dark Knight or the one after it). The Joker is the ultimate villain, not particularly powerful, but absolutely psychopathic and this is what is so scary about him. The Killing Joke and A Death in the Family are two of the most brilliant Batman comics.

But I digress.

There are so many movies that are laden with CGI yet fall absolutely flat, especially those that were first created in other mediums, for example The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (LXG) and the more recent Harry Potter movies. LXG was originally dark and dramatic (well, Alan Moore's comics are all like that) and the movie was trying to achive that yet became so campy it wasn't even funny. And the Harry Potter movies just sucked from the 4th one on. Let down by poor acting and the scriptwriter's poor selection of material from the books (not that the 5th book was any good), the movies are just another moneyspinner. I know the Star Wars movies (the newer 3) were pretty bad as well, but then again the story is so original, not to mention the older ones tend to cloud the viewer's mind with nostalgia.

The Rule of Cool states that the cooler something is, the more forgivable the leaps of imagination required. Best example, Transformers (Brilliant on the big screen). Now I find that its effect on me and my movie-watching experience is lessening so much that I feel sorry for myself. Of course it might be attributable to CGI fatigue, but it still seems rather sad.

Oh well...... I don't think that will stop me from being a sucker for such movies anytime soon, not with Hellboy 2 and Journey to the Center of the Earth coming out. (But the Mummy 3 movie seems too much like a theme park ride to consider buying a cinema ticket.) The Incredible Hulk was pretty okay though, up till the final fight scene which reminded me of Peter Jackson's King Kong which also had overlong fight scenes.

Profanity Laden Anti-Political Posturing Rant

This post is going to be filled with profanity. I recommend those with an aversion to foul language to avoid reading it altogether.

I am going to contradict myself as this post will be a post based on irrationality and emotion, in absolute contrast to what I had preached about a couple of posts back, where I promoted rationality in the name of efficiency (or at least that was the idea, I might have been rather incoherent).

The profanity starts here.

Fuck you Abdullah Badawi. Fuck you Najib Razak. And in case anyone accuses me of being pro-Malaysian Opposition, fuck you Anwar Ibrahim.

Fuck you Abdullah, for not doing anything to prevent the political posturing from dominating the headlines and Parliament, even though you are the leader of this country, even though you are not directly involved in this farce.

Fuck you Najib Razak, for allowing your good name to be so tarnished beforehand that people believe any allegations against you before they have been provecd/disproved.

Fuck you Anwar Ibrahim, for idly boasting of the ability to topple the government through defecting members of the ruling parties. Fuck you for not having the balls to admit that you have gay, if not bisexual tendencies. Fuck you for shamelessly pandering to the anti-BN gallery and not working your pampered ass off for the people and doing something useful for a change.

Fuck you SAPP for not thinking your actions through. If you have the guts to announce a no-confidence vote, have the balls to try to force it through. If I'm not mistaken it's been 2 weeks since that announcement and now you say you don't wanna do it anymore? You guys had 8 days to at least mention it in Parliament, but noooooo......... Fuck you.

All the incompetent cunts in Parliament right now can go and fuck themselves. If I were a registered voter, and an election were held tomorrow, I would either abstain or send in a spoilt vote, or even stand for election as a candidate. Fuck you self-righteous arseholes.

And all the religious fanatics out there can go hang. If a person is dead, and you take him away to bury him by religious rites when his religion is in dispute, aren't you disrespecting your God, who is supposed to be just (remember what that word means? It's inedible, in case you were wondering) and also the sanctity of the family institution? Does that not go against the very teachings of God you worship? And finally, why do you even give a damn? The poor soul has moved on, for better and for worse, and if you do not know his wishes, would it not, logically, be better to let the people he was closest to decide how to dispose of his remains?

Reminds me of a comic panel I saw in Australia. A Palestinian (presumably representing the current government of Palestine) and an Israeli (also presumably representing the Israeli government) are facing off.
Palestinian: We were democratically chosen!
Israeli: We were chosen 2000 years ago!

I do not mean to insult any religion. In fact I believe that a God exists, however I do not believe in restricting my belief in God to any single doctrine in particular. I just feel that it is amazing how religion has the power to deprive people of rational thought and how easily it can be used to justify morally un-justifiable actions.

Screw all of this. I am just so tired of bullshit. This I think, is why Marx advocated socialism. Because people can just be so stupid sometimes.

Malaysian Politics

I am disappointed.

I am the type of person who favours stability over free speech in a government. Needless to say, in the March elections, I was a supporter of the Barisan Nasional, even though I was less than agreeable with their government, mainly because I was afraid of that unknown component: the Opposition's unpredictability. At that moment, my view of the Opposition's only contribution to the country was: a) Creating an unfair perception of our country as a backward pro-medieval Islam country through PAS' policies. b) Delaying Parliamentary proceedings as long as possible by indulging in slanging matches.

I do not think I have been proved wrong. 3 months on, the slanging matches are still there, the administration of all States have become much more unstable due to the Oppositions' antics, and the Opposition parties seem more interested in grabbing headlines rather than bloody getting down to WORKING.

Abdullah Badawi is a weak leader. There is no doubt about that. But trying to undermine him in every single decision only makes the country much more instable.

Protest against the reduction of the petrol subsidy, why don't you? Stupid short-sighted people. Petrol prices are going up all over the world. What did you expect the government to do? Give out free petrol? The real problem was that the subsidy has been around so long that everyone has gotten used to the (artificially) low price of black gold. "Kudos to you, if only you had done it sooner." Obviously that would not have been a very good opposition slogan, right? But it would have been the right thing to say. Trying to force Petronas to reveal their accounts are one thing, I agree that there is a sore need for transparency, but trying to get them to give you cheap oil is a bit too much to ask. At the end of the day, Petronas is a company, with its main reponsibility to its shareholders, and not the public.

What else has the opposition done? One of the fools tried to log the forest, saying it was God-given. Well, wake up sir, the world does not just belong to you and your precious State Government. God did not create this world only for humans, otherwise we would not be just one species among millions, we would have been the ONLY species.

The optimal government would be one where there is not only the Opposition and the Barisan, it would be one where ALL points of view are represented, Barisan, Opposition, and Independent alike. We need more people who are truly there to work for the people, and not for mere personal gain. It saddens me that this will probably never become reality, whether in Malaysia or anywhere in the world.

Politics (in general)

I'm back in Malaysia. And I think I'm finally ready to do a post on politics.

To me, there is no perfect political system, and there will never be one. Why? Because man is essentially an emotional being. When emotion is the main driving force in life, and the key to making decisions, it will be impossible to have a perfect world/administration/leader. Also, every living thing is biologically programmed to be selfish, as a base instinct, so that the species may survive. As the intellect grows, so does the inborn desire to be selfish. What does this mean? It means that there can never be an administration that truly desires to serve the public, out of purely unselfish reasons.

Democracy is a farce. What is democracy? 2 words. Majority rules. The law of the jungle. The law which our ancestors followed while hunting mammoths. There is strength in numbers. Remember the saying "too many cooks spoil the broth"? In a democracy, there is no guarantee that the best, and most efficient solution to a problem will be implemented, simply because freedom of speech and equal rights will give possibly irrational, possibly rational opponents voice, and thus create a society where people muddle along as best they can.

Dictatorships are efficient, but are they equitable? If the dictator were a man who imposes his will with an iron fist, but his policies were equitable and as fair as possible to all, would there be opposition? Yes, from power-hungry opponents. And no man is that perfect. For power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Politics is a game. It has been played by all those who have wanted their say in how things are run, all those looking to seize power, all those who think their opinion is more important than others'. It will continue to be played, so long as man governs itself and does not revert to animalistic behavior. And I think that although dictatorships/socialism can create a truly fair society

Something to think about

This is just highly interesting blog post by someone else. It happens to encapsulate everything I've felt about religion at one point or another, just that maybe I've never liked to put down someone based on their beliefs, nor am I that articulate about my feelings. This is a must-read. trust me.

http://noworld4tomorrow.blogspot.com/2008/04/religion-debt-repaid-no-longer-needed.html

Many Unexpected Happenings

First post in a while, mainly because I haven't found anything worth blogging about. As it is, I'm doing this out of sheer boredom, in the midst of trying to figure out economic costs.

There were quite a few things I didn't expect when I came here. One, most recent one, is that people would watch hard-core porn in the TV room (Hopefully this sentence won't lead to dodgy ads appearing on this blog). I mean, this isn't quite your everyday TV show.

I also didn't expect such wonderful inconsistency from our kitchen staff. Sometimes, they can cook some really nice stuff, worthy of being served in a restaurant, and yet, sometimes, they can fail to cook something as simple as rice, so much so that MiG (Indomee Mi Goreng) feels like gourmet cuisine. One of the best desserts I've had was here, a really nice choc cookie cream cake, as good as Secret Recipe's Oreo Cheese Cake. However I've also had incredibly bad chocolate cake, something that vaguely resembles a chocolate brownie, minus the chocolate. Scolarest (catering company) has us at its whim and mercy, explaining why I have overspent on eating out.

What else did I not expect? I did not expect to learn so many new things from the people around me. For example, I learned that Malaysia blocks torrents from overseas, meaning that all the torrents I receive back home are seeded by only Malaysian seeds. No wonder its so slow. I've learned of Saladin, and why he is considered a great leader. I've learned how to be rude in Thai, Japanese and French.

I've picked up new games. Ever heard of Settlers Of Catan? It's the world number one board game, only recently surpassed by some random vampire themed thing, if I'm not mistaken. It really is a very good game, involving intelligence and interaction in equal amounts. Luck, while a factor, is no longer a supreme decider, unlike Risk or Monopoly. I've played Dungeons and Dragons, a wonderful role-playing game where all you need is pencil, paper, dice and imagination. I've learned to play Magic:The Gathering, although I don't own a single card.

Unexpectedly, I've not done many of my favourite activities in a while. I haven't played pool since 2 weeks after I came here, I haven't played badminton, and I haven't been to a cybercafe.

Really, really unexpectedly, I've met an M2 senior. He's part of the class that made the kangaroo-shaped SAM badges. He's been taught by Ms Logesh, Ms Choo and Mrs Goh. He knows all the usual hangouts near Taylors. He is a slacker, but a closet mugger. In short, he is a true M2-ian.

Miss you guys........

IH Ball

As mentioned in my last post, it's boring here, hence no updates for almost a month.

Anyway, went to the IH Ball last week. $66 for a non-drinking ticket :'(. But when we went there, we found that the staff didn't really care :):):):):):):):) Finished half a bottle of red wine, a glass of white wine and a sip of beer (beer's disgusting, I'll never drink it again). Was definitely drunk by the end of the night, lost coordination, really couldn't even walk straight. At least I was sober enough not to puke, and to stop drinking. Another friend had at least 10 beers and couldn't walk. He was almost kicked out by the bouncers "You can do this the easy way or the hard way". Cliched, but effective. He had to have us supporting him because he was almost unconscious. He passed out on the bus to the afterparty, then puked when the bus arrived. Puked again when we got off the tram at IH. He wasn't the only one, of course. The usual drunkards were wasted as well.

Anyway, enough about me illegally drinking. The ball itself was basically a party. We had a free flow of drinks, nice canapes as appetizers, a main course that was nowhere near worth the price, and cheap ice-cream. The veg and salad tasted better than the roast chicken they gave us for the meal, calling it some weird French-sounding name, can't remember what it was. No entertainment except the pleasure of others' company and a DJ playing dance music after dinner. And, of course, the dance floor.

The venue was interesting though. Called Red Scooter, it seems to be a party/function venue more than anything else (that explains the sucky food). Pool table, bar, projector, dance floor, tables, a small stage and nice deco. Didn't see a menu (drinks menus don't count) at all. Nice concept, wonder whether there's one in Malaysia. There's definitely one in Thailand though.

Thats about it for now. Can't post any pics because I didn't take much, quite sure there's ssome on Facebook though. Ciao!

Easter Holidays

No idea what to blog about....... Life's actually fairly boring here..........

Easter holidays! The time that almost everyone disappears to other parts of Australia (or the world)........ International House just turned into Malaysian House for a few days, until the others started trickling back in. The only non- Malaysian staying at IH I remember would be.... nope, can't remember anyone besides the staff.

The holidays just came too soon after the start of uni. I'm bloody bored! Finished my 3 assignments in 3 days (even while working on and off). Now I found out that I screwed 1 up only after I handed it in, and I have to redo the other 2 because my original sucked. So much for productivity.

Anyway, went to the Sandringham beach on Easter itself. The water was damn cold, but we probably wouldn't have gone in anyway because of the jellyfish. The jellyfish were basically infesting the waters there so much so that we risked touching a jellyfish if we stayed in the water for 5 minutes, whether the jellyfish were alive or not.

What else did I do? I went into town a couple of times, not really doing anything. I tried Max Brenner's offerings (waffles, chocolate banana pizza). I played Dungeons and Dragons (tabletop fantasy game), Munchkin (great game this, PLAY IT) and Settlers of Catan (great game too, but need experience to play this well).

And I volunteered for the Run for the Kids event last Sunday with about 40 other IHers. This was basically a charity run organized by the Royal Children's Hospital to raise money. I was at Drinks Station 1, just handing out cups with varying amounts of water in them. All for a good cause...... besides the fact that I really didn't have anything better to do with my time.