A Very Good Blog

Every movie I've seen since the HSC

2012-01-22T17:16:00.003+11:00

A list of movies I've seen through these holidays, with a brief comment on what I thought about it. Underlined ones are movies I would highly recommend other people to see.

Midnight in Paris: Owen Wilson plays a charming protagonist as he is treated to a parade of artistic legends. Chortles to be had.

Kung Fu Panda 2: Slickly animated action and an efficiently presented plot which culminates to scenes that are visually and emotionally brilliant. This really exceeded expectations.

Laputa, Castle in the Sky: (below) As expected of a Miyazaki film, it creates a rich, fully-formed fantasy world in which protagonists who are pure of heart experience magic and romance. Greatly enjoyable.

The General: Silent comedy star Buster Keaton gets into wild shenanigans with plenty of slapstick humour. If you like funny silent films, this is considered one of the best.

Bicycle Thieves: (below)A father and son search for their stolen bicycle, which the father needs to do his poster-sticking job to make ends meet for his family. This film is heartbreaking.

Metropolis: An old German silent movie containing many great iconic images of cinema. It builds up to a thrilling finale which may be the most exciting thing I've witnessed on silent film.

Goodfellas: A movie which follows the life of a kid who grows up to become a successful gangster. Kinda like Raging Bull though, I didn't really connect to this one. I'm too busy trying to keep up with the plot to feel much for the characters.

The Godfather: (below)I rewatched this because I barely understood what was happening when I saw it in Year 9. I suppose now I have a slightly better attention span because this truly is a great film.

Bridesmaids: A chick-flick directed by a director who usually makes films like. This was funnier than I thought it'd be and was a pretty good movie.

Pirates of the Carribean: On Stranger Tides: Given all the bad reviews, I was pleased to find that I enjoyed this movie. It's all more of the same action-adventure fluff but Jack Sparrow remains entertaining even at his fourth movie.

Larry Crowne: I watched this on the cruise planning to sleep but instead kept watching this movie on the little television in the cabin until it was over. It's a story with quirky characters but no real drama, tension or even purpose. I wouldn't recommend seeing this on purpose.
Captain America: The First Avenger: A solid superhero action movie worth watching, if only to get ready for the upcoming 'The Avengers', which I am really looking forward to.

Fitzcarraldo: (below) In this film, an enterprising businessman with an obsession for opera pulls a steamship over a steep hill in order to reach unclaimed rubber trees and make his fortune. What's amazing is that this was filmed on location and to make this film they actually did pull a steamship over a mountain using nothing but logs and ropes.

The Bourne Trilogy: I may well be the last guy to watch this series. Matt Damon plays a quietly intense hero who blazes his way through series of cleverly constructed action scenes to find his identity and purpose.

War Horse: As he did with Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan, Spielberg explores a large historical tragedy through the journey of his small cast of characters. This is quite a sentimental film but is done well enough to be satisfying rather than cloying.

The Third Man: Watching this the second time, I once again failed to get drawn into it. Give it a try if you like old movies.

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol: A well made action movie with generous helpings of humour that let's it all go down nicely.

Winter's Bone: (below) A seventeen year old girl with a missing father and a catatonic mother struggles to support her two siblings while facing the hostility of the local drug business. Not the most exciting movie but it has a very admirable protagonist and provides a look into the isolated community of the Ozarks, which before this I had not even known existed.

Melancholia: (trailer below) This movie features Earth being destroyed after colliding with the fictional planet 'Melancholia'. This is not a spoiler because the movie depicts this spectacle right in the beginning and instead focuses on the story of two sisters in the weeks preceding the collision. This is a powerfully executed movie and I shall write more about it later so as to convince more people to see it.

Hugo: I expected this to be another very well-made children's movie but I think that it speaks more to older audiences who are interested in film. In Hugo, director Scorsese breathes new life into films from the beginning of cinema.

Battle Royale: I watched this because I had just finished reading The Hunger Games trilogy which I thought was great. I found this movie disappointing though. The characters are crudely formed and unconvincing and the violence is more gratuitous than unsettling. I suspect the success of this film lay in the novelty of its idea.

Some stuff I wrote but never bothered posting before...

2012-01-12T16:39:00.000+11:00

Consider the following situation:

One hundred random innocent people are selected and imprisoned. You are provided with two choices. The first is to personally execute fifty of the prisoners, allowing the remaining fifty to walk free. The second is to walk away, resulting in the execution of all the prisoners at the hands of someone else.

I think most people would agree that the first choice is the right thing to do. It causes the least total amount of suffering and since the only disadvantage of the first choice is that you may bring mental distress and social condemnation to yourself by becoming a murderer, then you could even consider it as a selfless choice. However, does doing the right thing necessarily make you a good person?

Let's say a homicidal maniac (a bad person) and Mahatma Gandhi (a good person) are both faced with this situation. Homicidal maniac picks choice one (the right choice) because he wants to kill fifty people, being a bad guy and all. Gandhi picks choice two (logically now, the 'wrong' choice) because he is opposed to killing, being a good guy and all.

So in this case it seems that doing something that is wrong can indicate that you are a good person while doing something that is good can indicate that you are a bad person. Something's obviously wrong here since by definition, doing something right should indicate that you are a good person and vice versa.

The problem here is that we've defined good and bad in a different way to how we've defined right and wrong. We've defined a righteous decision as one which causes the minimum amount of harm to human beings and therefore a wrong decision as one that causes a greater amount of harm. We've defined a good person as someone holding benevolent values and intentions (e.g. Do not murder) and a bad person as someone with malevolent values and intentions (e.g. Murder is fun). The allocation of these definitions to each word pair doesn't really matter since we could've switched 'right' with 'good' and 'wrong' with 'bad' for this entire post and nothing would change. What's actually important is that we now have to wonder what's more important when it comes to one's behaviour: consequences or intention?

I planned to expand on this topic more but it now seems more complicated and less interesting than before. I may try this again when I think of an interesting real life example to apply it to.

Stuff I've been doing since the HSC

2012-01-01T16:59:00.001+11:00

Loyal readers may have been growing concerned that I have begun to neglect and forget about this blog. Unfortunately, being on holidays for so long has made it difficult to get out of procrastinating and get something done, even something as easy as a blog post. Anyway, here is my return to blogging with a recount of everything I've done since the HSC.

Schoolies!

Spent with a lot of guys at Byron Bay. The (possible) highlight was the intense mafia games where everyone played very seriously, resulting in daytime votes that would last for up to twenty minutes before someone got lynched. Fun was also had on the beach and we played a lot of video games. I watched the first season of Suits. I also spent at least 5 hours trying to make a song using GarageBand on Alex's laptop. Pretty cool

Formal!

Pretty cool. I had a good time.

Medicine Interviews!

Nothing too interesting to note here. At the UWS interview while they gave us a briefing, me, Jinghang and either Falko or Clement were sitting on dodgy chairs in the lecture hall and we kept swinging on them and nearly broke them. It was pretty funny if you were there. Went to Newcastle as well and saw the stupid Clement there. He was very stupid. Also went to Monash interview and flew to Melbourne with mum and dad. My sister was in Melbourne too for some volleyball tournament and we saw her there. We ate at a restaurant there and I had something nasty that (literally) gave me the shits.

Cruise!

Went on a P&O cruise to New Caledonia and Vanuatu with some family and family friends. At first I was disappointed because it didn't seem as big and luxurious as I imagined. But then we had dinner and I changed my mind. There's a buffet and a restaurant and you can eat as much as you want! The food was quite good and there was a large variety. Spent time at sea playing board games, cards, table tennis and watching movies. I had to take care of my eight year old cousin the whole time because he was attached to me and followed me everywhere the whole eight days.

At each port of call we would get off the ship and the general routine was to sightsee and then spend the day at the beach. New Caledonia was interesting because it was weird to be in a French-speaking country. In Vanuatu there was a beach with sea cucumbers littered across the sea floor. What an array of sumptuous delicacies! There were also lots of crabs and large fish. The asian parents got quite excited.

Also something I remember is going above deck at night. The sky was cloudy so there was no light coming in from the sky nor reflecting off the ocean. It seemed like the ship was just surrounded by pitch black. It was quite terrifying to imagine falling overboard into the darkness.

Here are some nice photos.

It cost us $2 to take a photo with this sign.

My cool cousins.

Eating food.

HSC Results!

Pleasantly surprised by 4U maths state ranking. ATAR 99.80. Actually a little disappointed because my estimate was 99.90. Let down by Band 5 English like an asian stereotype.

Macbook Air!

My uncle bought me a Macbook Air which I am using to type this up. Hooray!

Wilson's Party!

The amazing race thing was pretty fun at first but for our group was really slow and so we gave up when we found out we were coming last. Roger and I stayed behind to watch a busker juggle some knives and an axe and then everyone had dinner at a Chinatown food court. Afterwards some of us went to karaoke. I had only been to karaoke once before and I didn't really like it. This time however, everyone was really into it and we started dancing on the chairs and coming up with really dumb moves and it was actually really really fun.

I stayed over at the penthouse with everyone else. Before the karaoke people got there, Raymond had been a pyromaniac chucking flaming tissues off the balcony. Later I suggested we shaved the powder off all the sparklers to make a sparkly bomb and that was pretty cool. When we ran out of sparklers, Raymond kept chucking more tissues. One time the wind blew back and the flaming tissue landed on someone's balcony and we may have scared the shit out of someone because I think NY said she heard someone scream.

The morning after I had breakfast at McDonalds and ate a NY Bagel, a Hash Brown and some orange juice.

Maplestory!

My sister started playing Maplestory and said the new Mercedes class was really cool and I should try it. So I did and now I have joined Vincent Tran, Jinghang, Edwin, Edward and Allan as a Mapler (the dumbass Arthur plays too but he's in America or something). I decided to make a female character called PastrySwirl to be ironic and funny but Vincent Tran keeps bagging me out for it. In fact, he decided to get Edward to broadcast across the server that I was looking for a BF and that I was hot IRL. I got hit on by some guys which was really weird and blowing them off gave me an enlightening insight on how it's like to be a girl. (I'm not serious.)

Christmas!

Spent it with family and family friends at Blaxland Riverside Park, the new playground/cycling track area in Olympic Park. The playground is cooler than the one in Bicentennial park though the park itself isn't as nice. Not much to say besides that we went bike riding a lot.

New Years Eve!

Went with a bunch of people to see the fireworks from the Opera House. Really good view though whether it is worth getting there at 10am to secure a seat is debatable. It was fun though, and Wilson cooked mountains of tasty of food so we had a nice picnic all day.

The Dentist

2011-11-30T21:16:00.002+11:00

You know how people usually say, "Oh, going to the dentist doesn't actually hurt, you're just scared of the drill?". Well those people can just go screw themselves. Call me a pussy but going to the dentist really hurts. First of all the cleaning bit is just uncomfortable. Then when the drilling starts it just hurts a lot. And what's with the porno jazz music they play in the background? Apparently its supposed to be soothing, but seriously you can't even hear it when there's a drill boring into your teeth. Probably out of all the specialists, dentists are my least favourite because they involve the highest degree of pain no matter what procedure they're doing. One of the reasons I do not look forward to getting old is that the dentist visits will get progressively more complicated and painful.

That is all.

Midnight in Paris

2011-11-23T15:38:00.002+11:00

I do not know who Gertrude Stein is. I've heard a lot about Ernest Hemingway but have never read one of his novels. Midnight in Paris requires for its full enjoyment a degree of cultural literacy which I unfortunately did not have. This is not really a failure of the film. The film is made for a cultured audience charming it with a playful parade of artistic legends and unfortunately in this process, alienates those who have no idea about the characters on the screen.

There is still much to like, however. The film tells the story of Gil (Owen Wilson), a Hollywood screenwriter who dreams of writing a serious novel. He visits Paris with his fiancee Inez (Rachel McAdams) and her wealthy parents and is enamoured with the city, walking its streets and fantasising about the great artists and writers who inhabited it in the 1920s. On his walks at midnight every night, he enters a carriage that actually transports him to the 1920s where he meets people like Ernest Hemingway, Scott Fitzgerald and Salvador Dali.

Even if you don't know these people, it's still easy to get caught up in Gil's enthusiasm. Owen Wilson creates a very likeable character whose adulation for his literary idols makes them look good on the screen. He has a charming relationship with Adriana (Marion Cotillard), mistress of Picasso and a student of fashion. However, though their relationship is enjoyable to watch, it is not enough to sustain the movie.

Which brings us back to the first point. There is a scene where Gil sits in a café with Dalí, Buñuel and Man Ray. He tries to explain to them that he is travelling in time between the 21st century and the 1920s. Dalí, without humour, explains that this is perfectly normal and he states that he often feels similarly himself. Exasperated, Gil replies 'Yes, but you're a surrealist!'. If you find that kind of thing funny, then this may be your kind of movie.

Drive

2011-11-22T22:58:00.003+11:00

Drive makes you think you're getting one type of film and then gives you another completely different one. This is one of those films that at the end makes you realize that you just watched something great and by the end of the week you thought you watched the best movie in a long time.

I don't want to give too much away but I'll give a general outline. A man who is a stunt driver during the day and is a getaway driver at night helps his neighbour and her son when she gets involved in some deep shit. Thats really all you should know about the movie and not much else. I wouldnt reccommend you read up anything about it (apart from the Roger Ebert review which also doesnt give much away). This is however, one of the few movies I would recommend you watch the trailer for because it tells you nothing but sets up your expectations. In fact I encourage you to watch the trailer because it gives the movie much more impact.

One of the main highlights of this movie is the use of music, which perfectly matches the mood and meaning the director is trying to convey. Also effective is Ryan Gosling as the Driver. Even though he doesn't say much in the movie, he exudes cool and style and makes driving gloves seem fashionable. Whereas his character is subdued and silent, the other characters are a complete contrast. Nino, played by Ron Perlman from Hellboy, is particularly loud and rude.

I think this movie has the potential to gain a cult following in the years to come. The way it blends so many genres together and its use of retro definitely make it more timeless and I'd go so far as to say that this might be considered as a great film as time goes on. I watched this movie maybe a week ago and I can still remember how I felt watching the film and after I left the cinema. Its emotional impact stays with you.

That is all.

Top 6 Greatest Minecraft Creations

2011-10-28T23:58:00.001+11:00

I'm not sure if there's not much point in making this post because I'm guessing that at most only about eight or so people I know would read this and find it interesting. So to those eight people, this post is made just for you. I hope you like it.

#6 Halnicholas' USS Enterprise

The reason I put this up first is because it was the first Minecraft creation that left my mouth hanging open because it was so huge (safe). This was made when Minecraft was still in Alpha (though the creation is made in Classic) so this was before people had crazy mods and stuff to design massive epic structures. I think this was the first project of its scale ever made. An early milestone of Minecraft creations.

#5 Minecraft Cathedral by 'Sunflower'

Original forum thread and more images here. (I think the server on which this is built is still open to public).

The guy who built this (I'm guessing it was a dude) writes that he is a 'field expert in historical architectural theory and design' and that this cathedral takes inspiration from 'from Chartres, Amiens, Rouen, and Notre Dame de' Paris, and my experience studying and designing churches in real life'. This is quite a believable claim, looking at how intricately detailed both the interior and exterior of this cathedral is. It's worthy of note that this is designed using the original Minecraft texture pack, which is quite impressive considering its limited colour palette and tones compared to say, Painterly.

#4 Kiershar's Sky Monster Trap

There are two ways to play Minecraft: Creative and Survival. While Creative creations are generally much more interesting and impressive, there's something to be said for Kiershar's survival creations. Doing everything legitly with no mods on single player, he makes all kinds of clever and amazing traps for mobs and other players. This sky monster trap is the most impressive creation he's made so far though his devious traps to ensnare unwitting players are also definitely worth a look.

#3 FVDisco's Temple of Notch

Of all the Minecraft creations I've seen, this guy's creations, without a doubt, have got the most style. What sets this guy apart is his quirky and unique sense of design. He uses his own texture pack named 'OCD' which is changes all the textures to solid colours, straight lines and 90 degree angles. All his creations are compulsively neat, smartly presented and for lack of a better word, very, very groovy. If Minecraft creations were computer products, this guy would be Apple.

The video above is a prime example of why he's so cool. On my first viewing when the Notch statue opened its eyes I shat myself.

#2

Because every list needs a troll entry.

#1 The Voxel Box

It's not really right that I'm putting everything made by the Voxel Box server as one listing because really, this could be a list of top 5 Voxel Box creations. This is a very dedicated community of creative builders who build pretty much everything from towns, theme parks and crazy redstone devices. Their stated goal is to 'push the limits of what Minecraft can deliver to builders and players'. They also recently released an adventure map which is really amazing. It uses a mod that adds in custom sounds for atmospheric music and voiceovers.

And I just realised that this post completely contradicts the first sentence of my previous post.

The Thin Red Line

2011-10-08T01:26:00.002+11:00

I've managed to pick up movie watching again as a slightly more constructive study-reward habit than Minecraft. I'm really glad I did because the three movies I've watched in the past week or so are some of the best I've seen all year (which doesn't really mean anything because I don't see movies in the same year they're released). Those movies are Minority Report, Being John Malkovich and The Thin Red Line. I just finished watching The Thin Red Line ten minutes ago so I'll write a few things. I'm typing this on my iPod so I won't write a lot.

The Thin Red Line is a movie portraying the Pacific theatre of World War II. It came out around the same time as Saving Private Ryan did and it's quite tempting to make comparisons. I'd say that this movie is more ambitious than Spielberg's in that it tries to encapsulate more completely what war is about. Whereas Saving Private Ryan told a story about one particular group of men on a mission, this movie dwells on a larger ensemble of characters and often alternates between different perspectives.

Often you judge a war movie by how horrific and gritty it is. While this movie certainly does do this, more amazing is how much of a sense of loss you feel after each violent episode. Terrence Malick (director) has this trademark where he likes to break down the events into a montage while the protagonist voices philosophical questions like 'Where did our evil come from?' and 'Who is killing us?'. Sometimes the film gets very reflective and you're at a loss at what it's trying to say. There are times when the film lingers on images that are beautiful but kind of come out of nowhere. I think they are there to prolong the mood of a scene in order to signal to us that something profound lies underneath. There is one character, Private Whit (I think) who is the closest thing we get to a protagonist and his belief that there is goodness in humanity that is being carelessly discarded becomes an important theme in the film.

Well anyway this was a great movie and I'm glad I decided to see it. Its quite unlike any other war movie I've seen.

(500) Days of Summer

2011-10-03T14:29:00.003+11:00

Right at the beginning of (500) Days of Summer, adeep-voiced narrator tells us what the movie will be about:

'This is a story ofboy meets girl. But you should know upfront, this is not a love story.'

Themovie is about a guy called Tom who falls in love with Summer, dates her, getsdumped by her and spends the rest of the movie trying to get over it.

The reason for the popularity of this movie, I believe,is how easy it is to relate to. A lot of guys could empathise with the idea ofloving a girl so much but being mystified at how she can’t return it. The otherreason is that it deals with this feeling gracefully in a very light-heartedand enjoyable way. I wish that if I was put in the same situation as Tom, Icould be just as witty and likeable.

It's a great movie because it takes an approach to thefeeling of heartbreak that is humorous but true to the feelings involved. Tom'sanguish appears genuine but the film takes every chance to make light of hissituation. The balance between drama and comedy is helped a lot by JosephGordon-Levitt's performance which is really great.

There is also a lot of exciting editing in this film. Thedirector (Marc Webb, who previously directed music videos) stated that hewanted this film to be like a 'pop song in movie form' and we see this in theuse of split-screens, the narrating voice-over and the non-chronologicalsequence held together by 'Day X'- type title cards. It's all designed to bechoppy, exciting and highly palatable to a modern audience. In fact, I thinkWebb is a bit critical about the relevance of 'serious art' for being soesoteric and inaccessible to most of society. My evidence is a scene in amodern art gallery, and a short montage of scenes parodying some IngmarBergmann films.

The cinematography's great too.I can’t describe it technically but it has a nostalgic tone to it andalternates between very warm and very cool. On IMDb it says that the bluishtones are there to bring out Zooey Deschanel’s pretty pretty eyes, which isnice.

If I had a choice of the kinds of movies I'd like to seemore of, it'd be movies like these. Not necessarily important or challengingmovies, but clever enjoyable movies that tell important truths through livesnot very different to our own.

(Normally I should be posting this on the other blog, though since both are inactive right now I'd thought I'd revive this one first. And also because people asked for this on this blog.)

Last Day of School

2011-09-22T00:22:00.002+10:00

Today was the actual last day of school. Well technically it was yesterday because we went to the beach today but whatever.

Over the past week, I have been ticking off all the lasts that I had. Last math period, last english period, last free, last recess, last lunch, last bus ride to and from school etc. etc. and I realised that there was absolutely nothing special about any of them, apart from the fact that we did nothing. In fact, I would probably say that my last free period was one of the most boring I had in a while. I guess what I'm trying to say is that all the days we have are basically the same and even something special like graduation doesn't change that. I imagine that the day I die would also be quite unremarkable.

Going through graduation sort of reminds me of the episode of The Office when Steve Carell left. I watched it again yesterday.

That is all.

Leaving School

2011-09-11T22:22:00.002+10:00

If somebody had asked me a few months ago what I felt about leaving school, I would have replied that I was feeling pretty pleased about it. I would have explained that the HSC was like a great mental sponge, soaking up all the energy out of my body. I looked to the future as some vague dot in the distance where I would study things that I needed in life and work hard for reasons that made a lot more sense. It confused me when I saw the previous batch of Year 12s were so nostalgic and told us to treasure our days of school. They must be institutionalised, I thought. Like in The Shawshank Redemption how Red has been in prison for so many years that he doesn't know how to live freely once he is finally released.

Now that the future is a little more than a dot in the distance, I feel a bit more trepidation about leaving school. In a way, I guess I've been institutionalised (I'm only using this word half-seriously) too. What I mean to say is that in school you're stuck in a little bubble but in a way that's good because that's all you have to deal with. Once the bubble pops, you have to look after yourself in a much bigger place. I do look forward to making my own choices and deciding what kind of a person I want to be. But still, I worry that I will be burdened by choices rather than freed.

Also, only with the end so near do I realise that I'll really miss everybody. Once it's all over, it will certainly be strange no longer seeing so many familiar faces every day. There's still the formal and everyone will probably still maintain their networks of friendships but without the routine of school and being stuck with each other, things will be different.

Though I've had a change of heart about leaving school, I certainly have not forgotten the bad things about being in Year 12. I don't think I've ever experienced anything as stressful as the week before the English exam in Term 1. And there's still the HSC in 4 weeks. But I guess what I mean to say is that being a member of our year group has become a big part of who I am and it won't be easy to see the end of that.

Devolution

2011-08-23T23:10:00.002+10:00

I've been wondering whether or not we've come to a point in our evolution where we now are actually undoing all of the hard work that billions of years of human evolution has done.

As most of you would know, the concept of evolution is so that a species can reach perfection in adapting to its habitat. Humans have obviously been very good at this since we are now probably the dominant species on the planet. But I think now, because of all this scientific progress we're making, our genes are actually becoming worse. If you think about it all this medical innovation is actually ruining our gene pool because it means that people with hereditary diseases aren't dieing out but are instead able to continue to breed and pass on their genes. Also stuff like adaptability to the environment has probably been diminished because we can build our own homes and make our own climate to suit us.

Also, our social preferences are probably ruining our gene pool too. Note how now we not only select our mates based upon physical characteristics (traits which are actually hereditary), as a society we also covet other stuff like personality (which is probably not hereditary). This would probably mean ugly people like me would never be born but I seriously wouldn't mind if there were a few more Miranda Kerr's out there. The male preference for women with less hair on their bodies (I think men like hair on the head more), is also counter-evolutionary because hair is meant to keep our bodies warm, although I guess we don't really need it now since we have clothes, but still it reduces our adaptability. I also believe that women are also trending towards the less hairy male but I'm not too sure, and if this continues we will all probably end up being hairless.

What I'm trying to say is that if some alien life force came and managed to take away all our clothing and any means of producing more clothing, we would be pretty screwed. On the other hand, if evolution was allowed to continue normally, we, as very hairy Miranda Kerrs, would stand a much better chance of survival.

That is all.

I've been thinking hard recently.

2011-08-23T22:57:00.000+10:00

A few days ago after reading his blog I asked Jeffery on Formspring what he thought about determinism. I first learnt about determinism a few months ago from watching Waking Life (which I found about from Roger) and the idea seemed so amazing to me that I've thought about it a lot ever since. I now know that what I thought was determinism could be more accurately described as deterministic fatalism. That sounds a bit complicated but you can basically summarise it as this: if the laws of nature precisely govern the behaviour of every little particle in the universe, then everything that ever happens in the future can only follow one set path.

I had difficulty getting my head around this idea. It's not so hard to imagine that things like the orbit of the Earth, the death of a star, the formation of a galaxy are all predetermined events brought on by pre-existing conditions. But it gets harder when you realise that our minds are also made of the same particles as anything else in the world. So everything we think about, everything we do is not guided by our free will but rather the Laws of Nature being carried out within the particles of our mind. It's such a drastic conclusion but I can't think of any way that it's not true.

Accepting this belief of determinism, it then becomes quite hard to contemplate the implications of it. Should we resign to the futility of human will and forgo responsibility for our decisions? Technically, you don't even get to make that decision because that's predetermined too. But in real life when you make a decision, it still feels like you're making a choice and that you're in control of what you're doing. Free will may be an illusion, but it's certainly a very good one. People seem to make decisions everyday that affect the course of their lives. Everybody still needs to be held accountable for their actions and their decisions if society is to function. It seems that for all discussion of ethics, politics and practical real world issues, a fatalistic viewpoint while logically valid, is quite dangerous for the attitude of defeatism it implies.

Perhaps more profound are the consequences of these beliefs on things like spirituality. When one imagines the universe and consequently everybody within it to simply be a jumble of particles forced to follow a set sequence of interactions then that leaves pretty much no room for concepts like the human soul. I think this is a different topic altogether but thinking about this made me realise that the attributes that make up what we believe to be the 'human soul' like our personalities, memories, thoughts and beliefs are really just a specific arrangement of neurons. These things that we believe to be immaterial and maybe even persistent after death are in fact physical things that exist within our skull and decompose when we die. For this reason, I believe that there is no afterlife.

Anyway, this post was initially intended to be just about my fatalistic beliefs but it diverged a bit at the end. The reason I wrote about this stuff is that Jeffery lent me his course book thing from the philosophy course he did last year on the module 'Time and Cause'. This was meant to be a kind of introduction about why I'm interested in philosophy before I started writing about what I thought about the book Jeffery lent me but it turned out quite long. I'm halfway through the book Jeffery lent me and I'll blog about it sometime soon. It's titled 'Time and Cause'.

Harry Potter!

2011-08-14T20:03:00.001+10:00

I saw Harry Potter yesterday and wrote about it in the other blog.

I know its kinda pointless writing about Harry Potter, since it's Harry Potter and all but if you value my opinion on movies/ find it interesting then you might like reading it lols.

Formspring

2011-08-13T22:54:00.002+10:00

Today I decided to get a formspring for some reason. I guess I've been put off from getting one from either not wanting to conform to society or for the reasons Vincent had for not wanting to publicize his.
I suppose I should be happy with the four questions I've received from real people and my 2 followers but I always like to expand my horizons. My answers will probably vary in tone depending on how troll i feel.

The link is here

That is all.

Update

2011-08-09T03:17:00.000+10:00

Bob and Richard just posted some cool stuff about movies on the other very good blog and so have I.

If you're interested in contributing, then comment on cbox or msn me or whatever. You don't have to write about movies. It could be about music, politics, fashion, philosophy, pornography etc. etc. Whatever floats your boat lol.

Being John Malkovich

2011-07-19T23:01:00.003+10:00

I actually watched this move quite a while ago (I think back in year 8 or 9 during my movie watching spree cos I just got broadband) but I decided to re-watch it because it was really good. It's about how this guy who discovers a secret hole which allows him to be John Malkovich, an actual actor in real life. Basically its a portal for mind control, but it only works for one person John Malkovich, hence the title.

This is a lot more interesting than it sounds and the above synopsis is a gross over-simplification of the film. This movie is written by Charlie Kauffman (who also wrote Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) and I've watched four of the movies he's written which I'll post about later. Right now I'll just say he's a very original writer with many original ideas. Spike Jonze (Where the Wild Things Are) directs this movie and I think it's largely to his credit that he can thread all of the plot elements and themes here to make a coherent story which is emotionally involving as well as being funny and engaging.

What really confuses me is why the movie had such a hard time being made. Apparently plenty of studios turned down the chance to make this movie. One guy even said "Why the fuck can't it be Being Tom Cruise?".

Unlike Somewhere I think the majority of people will like this movie. It's an easy to watch movie (as in you always know what is going on and why - no long stretches of the camera just watching something) but not easy to understand. It's challenging not in an Inception sort of way where the structure of it confuses you, but rather raises questions that you might not have thought about before. What if John Malkovich went into the portal so he experiences being himself? What if a woman went in? What if John Malkovich had a child?

I think this is the perfect movie to start off watching other more diverse movies rather than traditional genre movies. I think it was this movie when I watched it way back in Year 9 that made me realize that good movies didn't necessarily have to be just conventional ones done well, but could also rely on original ideas not explored before. I recommend everyone to watch this movie when they have the time. Which is after Trials. Or HSC. You could still watch it now though.

That is all.

Somewhere

2011-07-18T22:56:00.002+10:00

I'd like to start off by saying that the idea for a separate film blog where everyone chips in is very good because it would probably lessen the guilt in me having multiple posts when I want to post about multiple movies and/or random posts. Over the holidays I've watched quite a few films but this one is one of the less weird ones I've watched. By that I mean, more people will get this movie than the other movies I watched (I think).

Somewhere is about a movie star Johnny Marco who feels no pleasure in anything even though he has a successful professional life. He also drinks a lot of alcohol, does drugs and a lot of women. One day his 11 year old daughter comes to stay with him after her mother needs to take some time off.

This movie is directed by Sofia Coppola, who you may know from Lost in Translation. Let me start off by saying that this film isn't as good as LIT. I think it just doesn't have the same intimacy as that movie and it isn't as visually as interesting because Tokyo at night is pretty cool. It isn't as funny (although I think this film has the funniest sex scene ever) and the acting isn't as good. Some of the themes and concept are the same and those are equally as interesting (at least for me) here.
On it's own though it is a really good movie. This is sort of like LIT in the sense that there isn't really a plot, things just happen. There's no complication except for the inner conflict Johnny has because he thinks he's nothing. The very end is a bit of a copout and a cliche, but the film still evokes emotion without getting all mushy.
If you thought LIT was boring, this will probably be the same for you (although for all you perverts out there is more sex and nudity in this but obviously done in a tasteful manner). I have a suspicion that even people who did like LIT won't like this as much. I thought it was just fine.

That is all.

Grave of the Fireflies

2011-07-18T12:10:00.000+10:00

Grave of the Fireflies starts with the death of its young protagonist Seita, starving to death as a tramp in a subway. The rest of the movie is a flashback from his ghost, starting from the firebombing of his village during World War II that left he and his younger sister Setsuko orphaned and homeless. They stay with their aunt for a while but she's a cruel woman so they leave her and live in a hillside bomb shelter, scrounging for food wherever they can.

This has got to be one of the most depressing movies I've ever watched. It's a very subdued movie which makes it all the more human when it sinks into moments of grief and suffering. Afterwards, I wondered what was the point of making a movie like this. It reads very well as an anti-war film, an exploration of how it destroys innocent individuals from the inside out. Seita starts off as a proud, well-off kind of guy but by the end he has nothing left in the world and has lost his will to live.

According to Wikipedia however, the director (Isao Takahata) never intended an anti-war message because the film is more concerned with 'conveying the image of a brother and sister living a failed life due to isolation from society'. I guess what he's trying to say is that if you made it an anti-war film, then it has a message of 'look at all these bad things that happen because of war' and that would reduce the tragedy of the events because they would have a meaning and a purpose. But there is no meaning to the events of the film. Noone comes out wiser and everything is just absurd (in this sense of the word). The fact that the film is partly based on a true story is enough to justify its necessity.

I wish now that I hadn't picked this as my last Ghibli film to watch until after Trials. It was such a depressing note to end it on. After watching this movie, I thought about it and then I thought of the exuberance of Princess Mononoke or Spirited Away and I felt really bad.

Princess Mononoke

2011-07-17T11:36:00.002+10:00

Continuing my watching spree of Ghibli films, yesterday I saw Princess Mononoke. If you haven't seen it, its about a young Prince Ashitaka, who is wounded after bringing down a wild demon that attacked his village. The wound is infected with some kind of curse which will gradually kill him and so he departs to the west in search of a cure. He eventually reaches an iron-making village led by Lady Eboshi that is caught up in conflict with the animal-gods of the local mountain ranges. There's also a girl named San raised by the wolf-god who he falls in love with. She's the 'Princess Mononoke' of the title, though that's more a description than a name because mononoke is just Japanese for 'monster-spirit'.

The noticeable thing about this movie is that there's no clear-cut villains. When the movie was over, I had this feeling that something wasn't quite right. I realised it was because though there was so much conflict and suffering in the movie, there is noone to really blame for it. There is no triumph over good and evil because there is no good and evil. All the characters seem to have complex and reasonable motives for their actions and that is something you'd hardly expect in this kind of fantasy epic story. Just think of the Empire in Star Wars, Saruman in Lord of the Rings or Voldemort in Harry Potter. (Not saying these villains are bad of course because they're all kickass characters. Just a different kind of storytelling.)

The love story between Ashitaka and San is also a pretty important part of the film but as usual, Miyazaki really plays it down. There's this scene where he's lying down recovering from a serious injury and she's taking care of him. She gives him some bat jerky to eat but he doesn't have the strength to chew. So she starts eating it herself and then she leans down to his face. I thought she was kissing him until I realised that she was actually spitting the chewed up meat into his mouth so he could swallow it. I know that sounds really gross but in the movie, its a really heartfelt scene.

Okay, the next paragraph will be about the ending so if you haven't watched it this is a spoiler alert. The ending baffled me at first because the denoument was very abrupt. I've thought about it a bit and it makes some sense now. I thought the villagers would be angry at Lady Eboshi for abandoning them but I guess they have too much to thank her for to condemn her for being lead astray by the Mikado's men. I was surprised that Ashitaka decided to help rebuild the ironworks. But I guess he couldn't return to the village as prince after having cut off his hair. Ashitaka and San not (quite) getting together was also a surprise but it makes sense because it would be pretty dumb if San lived with him at the ironworks. I think that in the end, its about the breakdown of the natural order between humans and spirits by Eboshi's firearms and the conflict that determined the establishment of the new order. Ashitaka, as a determined pacifist, is a neutral witness to the conflict who tries his best to end the fighting and minimise the suffering of everyone involved.

The next movie I'll be watching will probably be Grave of the Fireflies. And then I probably won't get to watch anything until Trials are over.

Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration

2011-07-16T21:53:00.001+10:00

I saw this on Roger Ebert's website and I thought it was pretty cool and something every wizard or witch should know:

"Ever wonder what the five principal exceptions to Gamp’s Law of Elemental Transfiguration are?

In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, it is revealed that Gamp’s Law governs the use of magic to create objects. However, there are five principal exceptions to the law that can’t be created or changed by even the most skilled wizard.

As the release of the final Harry Potter movie approaches, fans discover that only one of the exceptions is revealed. Harry Potter expert and author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide ® to The World of Harry Potter, Tere Stouffer, offers her opinions on the remaining exceptions to Gamp’s Law of Elemental Transfiguration.

In Deathly Hallows, J.K. Rowling reveals only one exception to the law: Food.

Hermione says, “It's impossible to make good food out of nothing! You can Summon it if you know where it is, you can transform it, you can increase the quantity if you've already got some. ’” And that pretty much sums up what we know about Gamp’s Law and its five exceptions.

But what else can’t be conjured or transfigured?

- Money and Shelter: This is two items, but they are often inextricably linked: one can’t have a beautiful or large home without having money to pay for it. Although an interior of a room or area can be expanded, as the Weasleys did while camping at the Quidditch World Cup and while riding ministry-borrowed cars, and valuable objects can be multiplied, if the intention is to suffocate a thief inside a vault at Gringott’s, they can’t be created from scratch.

- Clothing: Even wizards of great skill—Remus Lupin and Molly Weasley included—cannot seem to conjure up new robes and are instead stuck with old, patched ones, ones that are too short, or ones that are hopelessly out of style. If clothing were not one of the exceptions, Lupin would have long ago conjured a new wardrobe, and Ron would have avoided his dress-robe embarrassment at the Yule Ball.

- Body Part Removed by Dark Magic: In the wizarding world, all sorts of body parts can be repaired and even conjured from scratch (like the regrowing of Harry’s bones after his quidditch accident in The Chamber of Secrets.) But these same body parts—and the entire body, in the case of the Killing Curse—cannot be replaced or repaired if Dark Magic was involved, no matter how skilled the healer.

- Temperature: The conjuring of heat or cold or the transfiguring of something warm into something cold (and vice versa). Although wizards can produce water (Aguamenti!) and can emit steam from their wands through the hot-air charm—steam that lightly melts objects like snow or dries objects like sopping-wet clothing—wizards cannot raise or lower the temperature of the air, stop rain or snow from falling, slow or speed the wind, or heat or cool large bodies of water"

That is all.

My Neighbour Totoro

2011-07-15T21:00:00.000+10:00

I watched 'My Neighbour Totoro' the day before yesterday and I liked it a lot. It's about a father who moves with her daughters into a rural home where they meet strange woodland spirits (ie, Totoro). It was a much more subdued kind of movie than Spirited Away. Instead of a complication (like say, your parents turning into pigs), it builds up a sense of curiousity and wonder until it reaches moments of great magic. Miyazaki is great at creating really sublime moments with his animation and artwork. In particular I thought the tree-raising scene was pretty amazing.

I think that in the (very small) remainder of these holidays, I'll keep watching more Ghibli films. They make me feel really good, as opposed to other movies which just make me feel challenged.

Harry Potter - To Tim: HACK IT HACK IT HACK IT HACK IT

2011-07-14T21:30:00.007+10:00

So since the new Harry Potter movie came out I've been thinking about it a lot especially after I watched the trailer and it looks really good. This time around I have been trying to resist reading the book before I see the movie because all the critics say that it's really confusing if you don't read the books so I'm trying to see if that's really true. And I want to test whether or not the story in the movie is actually any good (no one seriously goes to watch HP for the story right?). I think the HP series is really a sort of visual experience rather than one for plot or acting or dialogue but I think that's ok because the films are actually quite good looking. I think my favourite one is the Half-Blood Prince because the colours and lighting and stuff actually enhanced the mood instead of just trying to look pro, which it did.

Anyway I was wondering why they suddenly changed the Death Eaters being able to travel in black spirals all of a sudden (it sort of looks like the shadow blade in fruit ninja). I mean it looks really really cool but why would they do that if they could just apparate? And it wasn't in the books either so I have no idea what sort of magic they're doing.

Also, WHY THE FUCK do wizards use quills? It's completely illogical. I'm pretty sure in the first few books the students always complain about blotches on their books because of the use of quills and their ink spilling everywhere and ink pots getting smashed etc. etc. Quills have no magical properties, are expensive, are difficult to use and also cumbersome. Which witch (haha geddit?) or wizard was stupid enough to decree that the wizarding world could only use quills? Seriously can't they see that there is a perfect solution to all their quill problems if they used a pen?!?! OR a pencil?! I guess pureblood wizards and witches can't be blamed that much because they probably would never heard of a pen or pencil but seriously, Harry what the hell? Didn't you ever stop to think "Screw these stupid quills I'm gonna use a pen."? Or Hermione. Aren't you supposed to be the smart one?!?!? What the hell was going through your mind when you switched from pen to quill?!?!? Was it "Oh I love this new more inconvenient stationery. I think i prefer this over the pen which I have been using which historically is actually an evolution and improvement on the quill." . Stupid bitch.

That is all.

Spirited Away

2011-07-13T00:29:00.001+10:00

I just finished watching Spirited Away and I thought I'd say what I thought of it while its fresh in my mind.

I sincerely, honestly loved this movie a lot. I don't like to use strong adjectives a lot for no reason but it was a beautiful, mysterious and enchanting movie. There's quite a unique sensation you get when you see a really great fantasy story like this. If I could relate it to any other experience, it would be closest to what I felt while reading the Sandman series. I find it hard to put into words but its the kind of fantasy that refuses to be seen as an allegory or a metaphor for real life but rather touches human emotions in a stranger, more profound way. Always at the end of such an experience I find myself wishing there was more.

What was refreshing too was that the film had a lot of heart, which is something quite rare in the angst-ridden movies I've been watching recently. Miyazaki seems like a really sentimental guy and it comes out really nicely. Also, the art that went into this was great. All the Japanese mythological figures everywhere were really quirky and a whole lot of fun. And I liked the music.

Anyway, I hope to see more Studio Ghibli films soon because this one was great.

And now for something a little different...

I've been thinking lately (okay, someone suggested to me) that I should make another blog dedicated just to posting about movies. The upside is that it might be pretty interesting because then I'd have to try harder to write stuff worth reading and things would get all serious and stuff. The downside is that I would have two blogs and only a wanker would have two blogs. So what I've been thinking is that I'd get many people to contribute and it would be a like a book club sort of thing but with movies. Okay, I know that sounds unbelievably gay but I can think of one or two people who'd be interested. So if you think you're one of these people then tell me in some way or another and maybe this dumb idea will go ahead.

(Oh yeah. Hope the people watching the midnight screening of Harry Potter right now are enjoying it.)

Persona and The Tree of Life

2011-07-10T19:51:00.001+10:00

I think like most people, my holidays have not been too interesting. However, I've watched some pretty cool movies lately. I watched Persona, a pretty old movie I watched at home and I saw The Tree of Life, which I actually had to go out to the cinemas to see.

Persona was a very perplexing movie. It's basically about a nurse who looks after a woman who refuses to speak even though she is perfectly healthy and sane. I don't remember feeling so confused watching a movie since David Bowman transformed into a giant glowing baby in 2001. Partly I was surprised because I've seen several of Bergmann's other films and they were very different to this. Usually his style is quite straightforward, such as in The Seventh Seal where to visualise a man contemplating the nature of death, he actually shows him playing chess with the Grim Reaper. This movie is much more mystifying and it is often difficult to see what's real and what isn't. Bergmann likes to play around with the audience and he does things like making the film look like its burning up or turning the camera around to show the film crew, like he's trying to say it doesn't matter because it's all a movie anyway.

The Tree of Life was probably just as non-sequitur and unconventional but I found it a lot easier to understand. It's about a family of three boys growing up in 1950s Texas though there are strange intermissions where he cuts to epic scenes that highlight the miracle of life: the formation of galaxies, thermal activity in the Earth's initial formation, the evolution of life and dinosaurs. His goal is to make a connection between our everyday lives and the terrifying grandness of the universe. I read a lot about this film before I watched it and I was kind of skeptical how you could alternate between these two plot threads without ruining the flow of the movie but it works because they're united in tone and atmosphere. Despite asking all kinds of big questions, it's a pretty emotional film.

<br><br>ED

EDIT: I'm gonna watch Spirited Away next so I'll probably write something about that next time.

Regular Update

2011-07-07T23:11:00.002+10:00

I really feel like posting a lot now even though there are fewer people than ever who read this because of exams.

Recently I've noticed how my movie watching habits have been sharply decreased over time. By that I mean there were really specific moments in my life which dramatically limited my ability to watch movies. Seriously, I think back in Year 9 when I first got broadband and just got introduced to downloading movies I think I watched about every single release for that year plus old movies. Now I can't even keep up with the latest ones. I still haven't seen Rango, Limitless, Paul, The Lincoln Lawyer, Sucker Punch, Source Code and Fast Five. Not too mention a lot of the recent releases that have come out.

Anyway back to movies I HAVE watched, which include Green Hornet (crap), Thor (good) and Adjustment Bureau (really good). It's really the last one I want to focus on because it has the most interesting premise since Minority Report. Basically it's about this guy who falls in love with a girl and vice versa but they're not actually meant to be together. How you may ask? (wow that sounded very douchey) Well there's this grand plan made by this dude and he has these guys all over the world who make sure that everything follows this plan. These guys have powers to help them to make things happen to ensure that everything stays in plan, like telepathically being able to move stuff, perceive your decisions and also change your mind. Seriously watch the movie, or if you don't have time read the first three (and only the first three) paragraphs of the wiki article.

Anyway, this movie really got me thinking if we actually have free will or do we only have the appearance of it. Like we can make decisions on the tiniest details like which pen to use or what clothes to wear but other decisions like your career are already predestined. Seriously there are times in my life where I look back and there were all these decisions that I made that brought me an oppurtunity or prevented me from doing something that I wanted. And plus all the decisions that everyone else has made around me. I wonder if there really are men in hats running around changing people's minds.

This sort of reminds me of the time after I watched the Truman Show and I got a bit paranoid that I was actually trapped in a TV show (btw that bit was actually supposed to be a surprise when the movie first came out) but then I realised that's stupid because if I were in a TV show they would never ever have me watch The Truman Show. Unless they're trying to be ironic. Hmm.... And I also realized that the Truman Syndrome is an actual mental illness and that I could be sent to a mental hospital if I kept my fantasy going. But maybe they just put that there to make me think that? DUN DUN DUNNNNNNN!!!! And I also realized how incredibly narcissistic it is to assume that my life was interesting enough for it to be the subject of a TV show. So now I've stopped.

That is all.

The Truman Show

2011-07-06T15:30:00.002+10:00

On Alex's advice, I watched the The Truman Show a few days ago. It's about a guy who doesn't know it at first, but later realises that he has lived his entire life in a reality TV show, which is streamed 24 hours around the world. Every person he has met is an actor playing a role and every place he has been to has been within a giant television studio. I found it an oddly emotional film which left quite an impression afterwards. It was very unsettling to see a person trapped in an artificial world, and there's always a feeling of something sinister hiding behind the film's appearance of a light comedy, especially in its first half.

I thought it was interesting that this film was originally written as a brooding sci-fi thriller kind of movie. Only after Peter Weir signed on, he decided to make the film a bit lighter and cast Jim Carrey in the main role. This was a pretty good idea because it gives a kind of surreal atmosphere to the film which patches up its otherwise incredulous plot. If the film took on a more serious tone then it would have been quite hard to believe or get stuck into.

It's hard to say what the movie is about. All at once it's a criticism of voyeuristic media, a questioning of reality and a story about escape. It's the last one that really made me like this movie. I can't quite explain why but I really felt for this Truman guy as he was constantly lied to and trapped.

Tennis

2011-07-05T21:59:00.002+10:00

I've recently been watching Wimbledon until really late and I was really pissed off that the network decided to only show one Roger Federer match which I missed especially since I stayed up almost every other night to see if he was on.

Anyway, I was really sad when Federer lost in the quarter finals because I really thought that this year was his comeback year. It made me realize that even though I thought that his greatness would last forever, it really didn't and the game of tennis really isn't the same anymore. While watching the Wimbledon finals, I discovered how boring tennis is in comparison to when RF plays. Really Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal were just hitting the ball as hard as they could at each other and seeing who could hit harder. Of course those two are actually good players, they have excellent court coverage for one, but somehow they lack the artistry with which Roger Federer plays with. For anyone who also watched the match, most of the time Djokovic tries to hit it to Rafa's backhand and Rafa tries to do the same. It was pretty boring. Obviously there were some really good points but every time that happened I always thought if Federer played, it would look a lot proer. In one of the points Rafa tries to do a backhand smash and it just turns into a really easy point for djokovic cos he smashes it back. It's not really an easy shot so good on him for trying. In another point Rafa tries to do a tweener but he seriously screws it up and it just ends up going nowhere. It was pretty funny because the ball went nowhere near the other side of the court, it just went off to the side and it was probably worth me wasting like 2.5 hours just to see that shot. Again, it's actually a ridiculously difficult shot to hit and kudos for trying but please just leave it to Federer next time. Watching that match made me realize how much I miss see Federer playing.

Also check out this match between Pete Sampras and Roger Federer. The Pete Sampras guy is seriously pro, I think maybe even better than Federer cos he's actually really old in that video. I bet if he played now, he would still be in the top 10.

That is all.

A deep sentimental story about me pondering the philosophies of life

2011-06-29T23:03:00.002+10:00

Ok, so this sort of story usually belongs to http://happinessequalsbracket.blogspot.com/ (for some reason I always think the stories are made up), but yeah this is a true story that happened to me while I was sitting in my car.

At the traffic lights I was looking out the window and saw this guy in a wheelchair and he looked about 40 or 50. Anyway, the street that we stopped at was really really steep like at a 20 degree angle, sort of like that street outside our school on the cross country route, the one next to the big public road? Forgot what it's called. Anyway the guy had to wheelchair himself up that hill and it looked really difficult because he didn't have any of those rails at the side of the wheels and the armrests really restricted the pushing movement. Basically it was one of those wheelchairs that are designed for a person to push you rather than you wheeling yourself. Anyway, halfway up the hill he gets really tired and tries to stop so that he can rest. Except he can't really hold tight enough on the wheels and he starts to slip and eventually he ends up at the bottom of the hill again. After a few seconds he just looks up at the hill and starts pushing again. I didn't see what happened next because the light when green but yeh, for a long while I thought "Wow, this guy can never walk again and can't even go up a hill and there are people out there (myself included) who complain about stuff like the HSC". Watching that man just looking at that hill and trying again really put things in perspective for me.

That is all.

What I do on the Internets

2011-06-28T22:26:00.000+10:00

Quite a long while ago Alex told me that revealing embarassing entries in my Google search history would make for an interesting blog post. I thought this was a great idea but unfortunately I knew that I cleared my search history everyday to hide embarassing searches. However, when I googled a way to recover search data, I found this site.

It turns out that if you have a Google Account, then Google will keep a record of every search you have ever made. Privacy issues aside, this was pretty cool because it meant I could look at a list of every Google search I have made since Year 7. I spent about a very long time looking through the pages. It was kind of nostalgic, which is kind of sad.

There's also a feature which lets you see your most frequent search terms. Now, I would guess that a lot of people reading this probably have an image of me as a pretty untainted, innocent kinda guy. So that these people can continue holding this wholesome image of me, I have strategically blurred several terms on this list. The rest of you can fill the gaps with your imagination.

This isn't really an accurate representation of what I do on the internet. 'Kol wiki' is from some text-based game I was really into during Year 8. I don't look up Crysis 2 anymore since the game came out. 'Daily clicks' is for Neopets, which I have played intermittently over the years. 'Thesaurus' is to help me write my English essays (though I've kicked that habit now). And I don't really go on 4chan that much anymore.

The Top sites thing isnt really that accurate either since I only enabled it to start tracking a few weeks ago. I think the 'most visited' page on Chrome is a better representation. Right now it reads 'Facebook, Formspring, rogerebert.com, Youtube, Kongregate.

Really Really Bored

2011-06-22T22:52:00.003+10:00

This is more of a stream of consciousness thing here so don't expect anything particularly interesting.

The only reason I'm writing this post is because I'm really really bored and I don't feel like doing any work but I still have to look like I'm doing work, so I remembered that I can post in this blog and that typing looks like doing work and so I'm doing this post. Everyone also seems to have formspring but I'm trying to resist the temptation of getting for some reason I don't even know. Maybe it's because I want to prove to myself that I'm not a conformist. But I have a feeling I'm going to get one soon even though there is absolutely no peer pressure for me to get one. Don't you hate it when people say "Countries like Africa"? Africa isn't a country!!! It's a continent!!!! So there can be no countries "like" Africa because Africa is not a country!!! Blair's 3U speech today was really good. Actually my class is full of excellent public speakers and I'm so glad the majority of them went today so that hopefully Ms Mayers will forget how good those guys were last week. But there are still some pretty good speakers left, in fact I think there's still a good majority of good speakers left, if not all of them are good. Great, now I sound like a suck up. To balance things out, I'll say that there is a really crappy speaker in my class. OK now I sound like a douche. Man I really hate the red squiggly lines under words which are supposed to be wrong but they really aren't, they're just proper nouns.

Oh, almost forgot, today was the happiest day of my life because I finally broke the 1000 point barrier in fruit ninja arcade mode!!!!!!!!! WHHOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! Damn it!!!! Another squiggly line. Anyway, high score of 1043. Check it out on Raymond's iPad. There's also a screenshot of it. As if iPad isn't a word! Stupid Alex got 1199.

I haven't watched any movies in quite a while and the only games I have played for the past few weeks are Bejeweled Blitz (EVERYBODY SHOULD PLAY THIS!!!!), Zuma Blitz and Fruit Ninja plus the odd random FaceBook game. You guys should really check out Fruit Slasher. It's a really really really really really really really really really crappy version of Fruit Ninja.

My life seems to have lost a lot of purpose after Steve Carrell left The Office. I'm afraid to watch the episodes after because I think they might ruin the glorious Steve Carrell period I watched. Will Ferrell was so bad he almost ruined the farewell to Michael Scott. I don't even know why he was there. He isn't even a permanent character, he just showed up for the farewell. Or should I say the "Ferrell"? Haw haw haw. Oh man not these type jokes again.

That is all.

Stuff I did in the last two weeks

2011-06-17T11:47:00.000+10:00

This exciting blog post will be about all the stuff I've done in the past two weeks. In roughly chronological order:

Shakespeare Festival
Was kind of fun. We were fully unprepared and were practising in the car on the way there. The people there didn't laugh at our jokes as much so it felt kind of awkward. They're still deciding whether or not to let us through to state because (of all things) we went over the time limit. Tim and Louie are hoping we don't get through because the State Festival is on the week before trials.

The festival was at William Clark College which is a pretty well to do private school. All the buildings looked so impressive that we went exploring out of the school. We tried to go into the library but the guy kicked us out because we looked super dodgy as a bunch of asian dudes wearing full black drama clothes. That was pretty awkward.

Exams
Were mostly okay. I found 4U maths really hard and I wasn't very confident about my Physics answers. I was severely lacking in motivation for this round of exams so I feel that I could have tried harder. (Except for English. I tried pretty hard for that because it's pulling me down.)

Minecraft!
I have been developing my floating rock island and it's looking pretty good now.

During my studious studying, I managed to build an okay looking house. I also tried to build a TNT cannon. In Minecraft, a TNT cannon is a structure that uses TNT to propel another block of TNT a very long distance before it blows up. It works because if TNT explodes while in water, it can propel objects but won't destroy blocks. But I kept stuffing up the design and the TNT didn't fall into the water. And when that happens it just destroys everything and you have to start again.

To add to my troubles, I kept falling off the floating platform. While a floating island looks cool and everything, it's pretty annoying to get back into if you fall off.

Watching X-Men: First Class
Okay this is actually the real reason I wrote this post. I watched X-Men with a whole bunch of other guys yesterday and afterwards Alex asked if I was going to write what I thought about it on my blog. So here is my attempt to write a serious review about this movie.

The movie shows the first meeting of Professer X and Magneto and the events that surrounded the revelation of mutants to human society. It's centered around the Cold War, in particular the events surrounding the Cuban Missile Crisis. Putting everything in a historical context allows for a more complex plot and gives a bit more weight to the action. It makes the movie look more serious than say, X-Men 3 or Thor.

But the effectiveness of the movie is lost to its plot. It weaves around all its characters without finding some kind of focus. The movie should have focused more on Charles and Erik rather than spending so much time going through the other mutants. I suspect that comic-book fans wanting to see all their heroes was behind this decision.

In the end I found the movie to be alright. It is quite well paced and some of the performances are quite charming. The final act plays out nicely. But it needed some kind of emotional edge which could have been brought by perhaps giving more insight into its characters.

Formspring

2011-06-06T02:14:00.000+10:00

I've had a Formspring for a while now but I never shared it because I worried that noone would ask me questions. I also didn't know how to publicise my Formspring without looking like a wanker (seeing as I already use my MSN pm to publicise my blog).

Anyway, for various reasons all of that doesn't bother me so much anymore. So here's my Formspring:

http://www.formspring.me/vincentkong

(I will give answers as serious as I think the questions are.)

Movies

2011-06-03T22:27:00.002+10:00

For our faithful readers out there expecting another deep and meaningful post, this is my return to our traditional topic of movies. So movies that I am currently really excited about are:

Super 8 - some kids make a film and discover aliens I think. Not too sure because it doesn't actually say in the trailer but it's pretty obvious.
X-Men: First Class - I really didn't like the X-Men origins movie and the Xmen 3 also seemed a bit lame but I hope that this new one is better with a decent director (this guy also directed Kick-Ass)
Green Lantern - Not really too sure about how good this one will be but it seems kind of interesting
Cars 2 - Even though the last one was my least favourite Pixar movie, I still think it's going to be good because it's Pixar.
Transformers 3 - I think this going to be crap, but I still want to see robots fight each other. And that new chick.
Cowboys and Aliens - just look at the title
Crazy, Stupid Love - STEVE CARELL!!!!!
Johnny English Reborn - I haven't seen Rowan Atkinson for so long
Hugo Cabaret - New Martin Scorcese film
The Adventures of Tin Tin

That is all.

woooooooooooooooooow

2011-05-31T22:16:00.005+10:00

Throwing stuff out

2011-05-27T21:53:00.005+10:00

As a child I was always a bit of a hoarder. I kept a weird collection of things I refused to throw away. It's hard to remember what I kept but it included baby teeth, broken toys and random crap that I thought would be useful someday. I kept it all in a stash in my room, ensuring it remained hidden from my very tidy mum.

It was a difficult habit to get out of. At first was the problem of realising what was worth keeping and what was rubbish. It took time to convince myself that empty batteries should just be thrown away. However, many things I kept I knew had no value. I realised I placed a lot of sentimental value on the silliest things. I became attached to clothes that I wore a lot and found myself extremely unwilling to throw them away when they became too old or useless. It made me really sad when I outgrew my pajamas and my mum cut them up and used them as rags.

I guess I anthropomorphise inanimate objects too much. Just yesterday I had to replace my worn out toothbrush. (I will take this opportunity to once again promote oral hygiene. Replace your toothbrush every three months, people!) As I threw it away, I felt bad about disposing this toothbrush which served me well for three months in such an unceremonious manner. Of course, I quickly realised how absurd my feelings were and that inspired me to write this.

I had a few ideas about why I found throwing stuff away so difficult. Perhaps I just feared the passing away of things. Even throwing away an empty pen or plastic bottle, it crosses my mind that I will never see it again. That really worried me. As a child, I was always aware about the transience of life. Even while holding my mum's hand, I imagined that her skin and flesh would one day be a pile of bones underground. Everything inevitably has to go and that was always hard to accept.

Well it seem that what started with a whimsical recount of my hoarding as a child has turned into me shooting the crap about the transience of life. I feel I must apologise for trying to be so d&m all the time for fear of seeming pretentious. But I realise that writing openly can make for more interesting reading. So I promise to stop apologising next time I do this. Thanks for reading.

[Edit: Just realised this is my 300th post. Hooray!]

Pointless Update

2011-05-24T22:00:00.001+10:00

I don't know what to write about after writing so much last time I posted. So as the title indicates, this update was made for the sake of an update.

Firstly I want to say that the response to my last post was pretty cool. I was a little surprised that everyone had such strong opinions about religion. It was also very comforting when I saw that a lot of people empathised with my fear of eternity.

Anyway, recently I rewatched Cinema Paradiso because I liked it so much. The movie is quite sentimental but it pulls it off and ends up quite touching. In particular the first act of the movie is very entertaining because it depicts the protagonist as a child and he's really cute. Unfortunately he grows up about an hour into the movie. I also have to say that Ennio Morricone is my favourite movie music composer. He also did the score for The Good, The Bad and The Ugly which has the best movie soundtrack I've ever heard.

Here's the trailer, though I don't think its a particularly great representation of the movie.

And here's Ecstacy of Gold, by Ennio Morricone. (From The Good, The Bad and The Ugly)

And that's all I really have to say. Also, look at what I built on Minecraft!

I will concede the tower is a bit ugly but the floating island is pretty cool.

High School Inception

2011-05-19T22:31:00.003+10:00

Wow. I haven't posted in a really really really long time and now my comeback seems completely insignificant compared to Vincent's. I might write my thoughts on religion someday but I don't think anyone really cares and some points are the same as Vincent's. Anyway this is what I wanted to post:

Now that's mind-boggling! (High School Musical 3 was released 2 years before Inception) Maybe Christopher Nolan thought "Man this hallway sequence is cool but it sure is pussy".

On a final note, Steve Carell left the Office which makes me really sad to see him go. I don't know if I'll continue to watch the Office now that he's gone so this may be the last -

Office Quote of the Day: Well, I guess this is it. Hey will you guys let me know if this ever airs? Thank you.

That is all.

My Religion

2011-05-19T00:58:00.035+10:00

I haven't blogged for about a week now, which is quite a long time for me. So I thought I'd come back with a bang and write about the mother of all contentious issues. Religion is something I've wanted to write about for a long time. My heart is actually beating hard as I type this, which is something I can't say I've ever experienced while blogging before. So here goes.

There is no doubt that nothing stirs up more heated debate than religion. The nature of the subject naturally brings up all kinds of dogma that makes sensible discussion quite dificult. All I really hope to convey here are my own experiences with religion, how it has changed during my life and what I think of it now.

(Note: When I talk about religion, I almost exclusively mean Christianity. Simply because that is the only religion I've ever dealt with.)

For many years I considered myself a good Christian. I prayed every night, mostly to say thanks and to hope for self-improvement. In times of distress, I prayed for strength and for faith. I tried my best to behave in a way that upheld the ideals of Christ. However, I never regularly attended church. At first this bothered me because that was the proper Christian thing to do. Later I worried about it less because I believed that God would recognize my sincere faith in Christ regardless.

I rarely had trouble holding onto my faith. As a child, I had no problem in believing the story of Genesis and all the Old Testament events like the Flood and the parting of the Red Sea. Growing up, I started learning about things like Evolution and the Big Bang that disputed these stories. But that was never an issue for me. Like most sensible Christians I know of, I simply altered my interpretation of the Bible. The seven days of Creation became seven metaphorical days. Adam and Eve's banishment from Eden became an allegory rather than historical account. Most importantly though was that none of these things really impacted what I felt was the crux of Christianity- the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Thinking back now, I was never really concerned with the validity of the Bible. I did not find it hard to believe that the Son of God walked the Earth two thousand years ago. I was more occupied with the ideologies and teachings of Christianity. I was confident that my faith was unshakeable and so I devoted myself only into being the best Christian I could.

So I was once Christian. As good a Christian I believe, as any. I may not have studied the Bible all that intensely but I felt I knew enough. More importantly, I had sincere faith in the sacrifice of Christ for humanity's sins, which is really what Christianity is all about.

Now, however I am an atheist. Not even an agnostic or anything. Completely atheist and maybe even a little nihilistic. Ironically, sometimes I see my departure from faith as my true 'second birth'. So let me explain how it happened.

About last year I found out that my dad didn't believe in evolution. It really set me off. I told a friend about how much it bothered me. He promptly replied that I was completely overreacting. Which I was. I always knew that there were Christians who denied evolution. As I explained earlier, I found a way to accept scientific facts without hurting my faith. My opinion on those who could not was that they may have been ignorant but they had a good relationship with God and that was the imporant thing.

But it's one thing to talk about ignorance and another to witness it first-hand. To see it in my dad was hurtful. I guess that's one of my vices. Ignorance just really gives me the shits. Experiencing it at such a personal level tied to religion was enough to make me question my faith.

My 'conversion', if you like from Christianity to atheism was certainly not solely dependant on this event. But I have to say that this was the first domino in a long chain reaction. In the months to follow, I went through a very long process in which I gradually, almost painfully, let go of my religion.

I find it difficult now to recount my thoughts during these months. They're hard to remember. Little arguments against Christianity flew in from all sorts of directions. I became acutely aware of the historical context of Christianity. It started two thousand years ago as a branch of Judaism which differentiated itself by the acceptance of Christ as Messiah. Somehow it managed to spread over all of Europe and became the major religion it is today. Realising that the Bible (at least the New Testament stuff on which Christianity is based) was written only two thousand years ago made it seem less authoritative in my mind. (In comparison, humans have been around for 200,000 years. And that's not even including neanderthals and stuff. Which raises the question, if animals aren't subject to Judgement after death, then at what stage of evolution did humans begin to be judged for their sins? I have heard that some religious leaders have released official statements about when they believe the human soul was 'evolved'. (Okay, I realise I'm being kind of smart-alecky here but I thought that was a pretty clever thing to ask.))

When I say that these little arguments came from all sorts of directions I really mean it. Even at school, we happened to be doing 'The Cosmic Engine' for Physics. I thought a lot about the incomprehensible scale of the universe and how insignificant human life, history and culture is compared to say, the lifetime of a star. It seems like a bit of characteristic vanity on the part of humans to propose that we were made in the image of the creator of the universe. Also particularly valuable during this tumultous period were the videos of this particular Youtube channel. Lots of strong arguments opposing religion there. Unfortunately, he comes off a bit smug and arrogrant at times (especially towards Christians, who seem to be his main target) but that seems to be a trait of most atheist campaigners. I think its rubbed off me a little too.

The thing to note about all these little arguments against religion (except maybe the Youtube guy) I accumulated were that they appealed to my emotions rather than my sense of reason. That's what really tipped me over. Any sensible Christian knows that reason has very little to do with religion. Faith is what really holds religious beliefs together. So when my emotions began to react against religion, there was no longer anything that tied me to it.

There was one final obstacle I had to overcome before I could let go of religion and that was fear. I feared eternity. Lying in bed at night, sometimes I think about how time is infinite. When I think about it hard enough, it gets really fucking scary. Time never ends. Does that mean everything exists for ever? Forever is a very scary word. Even as a Christian, I would think of eternal happiness in heaven and even that would unsettle me. Who wants eternal happiness? I don't want eternal anything. But time is infinite, so everything goes on forever whether you like it or not. Who can deal with such terrifying truths? This might not sound powerful now but thinking about it in the middle of the night, it drives me crazy. Fear of eternity has plagued me for a very long time. As a small child, I would end it by imagining the embrace of my mother. In adolescence, I took comfort in the hope of heaven, where the Bible explained that eternity was a good thing. For a while, I held onto religion solely because of this security it gave. I resolved I was too weak to be an atheist. My solution in the end was to avoid the question of eternity. I did so for at many months. Doing so, I was able to well and truly became an atheist and I finally ended my prayers to God every night.

Just last week, I thought about eternity again. As always, it drove me nuts. I sat up in bed and stared at the wall for a while. Then I went back to sleep. The fear of eternity that almost kept me religious reflects a comment made by Cardinal George Pell last year. He claimed that the lives of people without faith have 'nothing beyond the constructs they confect to cover the abyss'. To this, one disgruntled newsreader replied, "It seems to me that the Cardinal is just upset that nobody wants his lollies."

As a final note, I would like to say that I am very content now in terms of all this metaphysical stuff and I cannot imagine myself returning to Christianity. My mind remains open, as always, but it has taken a long journey to reach where it is now. It would please me greatly if this post provoked some kind of discussion. There are other opinions I have on religion that I did not have time to touch on.

Well, that's all that I have time to write about religion. I'm a little tired now because I just spent almost two hours writing this (didn't even realise that time was passing). I would like to apologise to anybody who came to this blog and expected some movie/flash game recommendations. The truth is I haven't been getting much of either lately because of schoolwork/Minecraft.

Once

2011-05-08T12:07:00.000+10:00

I watched Once yesterday and I really liked it. I heard about it a while ago because I some people in our grade performed Falling Slowly last year or something. I looked up the song on Youtube and really liked it and then I Wikied the film and saw that a lot of people like the movie too. But I forgot about it for until a few days ago I decided on a whim to download it. Probably the best decision I made all week.

Here's a music video for Falling Slowly using clips from the film:

I don't know what else to say except that if you liked this video, go watch the movie.

My House

2011-05-02T23:34:00.002+10:00

This was a post I wrote last week but I didn't publish it because I thought it was kind of stupid. But I'm publishing it now because I haven't posted anything for about two weeks, which makes me feel bad. My life needs consistency.

I had the sudden inspiration today to write about my house.

Compared to its neighbouring houses, my house looks a bit big. That's because its a single storey house that's had a level added on top. So really its the size of two houses. Its a pretty nice place but there's a few things about it that occasionally piss me off.

If you look closely, there's lots of little bits of dodgy construction around the house. There's big cracks on the walls around our front lawn because the soil has either eroded or sunken. The light switch for the toilet is outside the door. The doors don't shut properly in extreme weather because the wood contracts/expands. Our house was built by a construction crew owned by a family friend, whose crew mostly consisted of untrained apprentices. However, I think just a little more common sense and thoughtfulness from the builders would have been enough to make our house better. The toilet in the en-suite is squished in a tiny corner between the wall and the sink despite the huge empty space in the middle and the presence of an enormous bathtub we have never ever used. If you saw it you'd laugh.

I think my dad put a lot of thought into this house. He designed its layout and everything (though he had to get some developer guy to look over it) so I feel a bit bad when I think critically of it. Because of this, I've tried to change the way I think about my house. While I frustratedly tried to slam the bathroom door shut this morning I thought that all the annoying little things in the house give it a bit of character. It still pisses me off that my face is pressed to the wall when I take a shit but I imagine that someday as an adult I'll get all sentimental and nostalgic thinking about this house and all its little quirks. It kind of embodies some of the qualities I see in my parents. It's quite noticeable, a little dodgy and kind of tacky. But in the end, its my home which is always a good thing.

Sarah Palin

2011-04-21T23:13:00.000+10:00

I was looking at random Youtube videos today and it struck me again how ridiculous Sarah Palin is. She is unbelievably incompetent and it is amazing how she managed to even run for US Vice President in 2008.

Example of Sarah Palin being Sarah Palin:

The point of this post however, was not to point out how stupid Sarah Palin is but to share this hilarious video of Matt Damon voicing serious concerns about her in an interview.

And another opinion about her by John Cleese (former Monty Python member and the guy in Fawlty Towers). He nicely sums up her entire political career about 3 seconds into the video.

Some flash games

2011-04-18T21:21:00.000+10:00

There are some seriously good flash games on Kongregate right now.

Elephant Quest
From the people who made 'Achievement Unlocked' and 'This is the Only Level'. Both really great flash games, though this one is even better.

Upgrade Complete 2
Like Upgrade Complete 1, but with more upgrades. Pretty cool.

Minecraft

2011-04-17T01:22:00.000+10:00

Minecraft is ruining my life. I can't sleep properly because I keep thinking about it. I had a dream about Minecraft last night. It's 1AM right now because I stayed up playing Minecraft, even though I was planning on doing something else tonight. On the plus side, my cavehouse is now amazingly cool. I spent the past hour channeling water from the nearby lake into little pools in my cave so I could grow sugar cane and wheat. Amazing. I also built a secret underwater entrance to my house, which was pretty cool as well.

I only started playing Minecraft on Thursday, so I managed to do some other things before that. In no particular order I watched:
- Where the Wild Things Are
- The Social Network
- Black Swan
- American History X

I thought these were all great movies and it'd be difficult for me to say straight off which one I liked the most. I'd recommend Where the Wild Things Are the most out of all of them because I'm guessing most people have seen the second and third movies and American History X is already on the imdb 250.

Also, I rewatched Vertigo and Citizen Kane (mostly because people talking about it on Facebook made me feel like watching it). I had an audio commentary by Roger Ebert on Citizen Kane that I was going to watch but I got pretty bored halfway. If anyone's doing it for English though, I'd say it's one of the most useful resources you could get on the movie.

I also read Maus, which I borrowed from our school library. I mention this a lot, but I have to mention it again: our school has an amazing graphic novel collection.

The Dictionary

2011-04-16T22:45:00.002+10:00

Lately, I've been finding the dictionary a very interesting and informative experience. So was Fruit Ninja with the Fruit Facts. But back to dictionaries.

I think dictionaries are probably underrated as books because people find them boring. False. There are many endlessly fascinating words which can be found within the confines of the dictionary. I think what people lack is a really comprehensive dictionary. The "My First Dictionary for Children" isn't going to cut it. I use the Concise Oxford Dictionary and it's really fun just to flick to a random page and look for an overwhelmingly complex word and find out its meaning and then use it in a sentence so that you look and sound like a genius.
Example: "Walter is nuciverous" which really just means "Walter is nut-eating". But it sounds so much better. Also, "Walter is non-nuciferous", which means "Walter is non-nut bearing".
There are also many archaic insults in the dictionary which can be used to confound your verbal opponents e.g. "You're such a ninny" with ninny meaning a foolish or simple-minded person.

Here are some words which I would like to use in these sentences more often. Look them up for yourself (but please don't use dictionary.com, it is the destroyer of the procurement of words):

Wilson has prognathous.
Some people have very obscure sobriquets.
Meet at the top right socle of the library.
Please pass the fondant.
I admire the craquelure that is prevalent within Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa.

That is all.

Some movie trailers.

2011-04-13T20:25:00.000+10:00

Decided to watch upcoming movie trailers for a while today. A lot of them looked pretty crap but here's a few I thought seemed promising.

Gary Moore - The Loner (guitar cover)

2011-04-10T00:53:00.000+10:00

Here's some more guitar recordings that Edwin sent me. He hasn't bothered filming himself while playing so these are audio only.

First, a cover of Gary Moore - The Loner

And an impro recording with no real name.

Also, I was looking through my album of images that I save so I can upload onto this blog and I found this:

I must have forgotten to upload it.

Some thoughts about language

2011-04-09T20:52:00.008+10:00

This blog post follows a chain of thought I had which went through the course of an entire week.

It began after I read The Catcher in the Rye. It was the first time in a while that I voluntarily read a book in my spare time and I thought it was great. There is richness in reading that you can't get out of a film or TV show or whatever. I also read Jane Eyre for English in the holidays and I really enjoyed that too. So I developed a renewed appreciation of reading and I started thinking about how Stephen King wrote that literature is 'refined thought'. When we read we hear the words on the page being spoken aloud. Unlike a film, we don't hear it with our ears because the voice is coming from inside our head. That's a very powerful thing.

Anyway, after a while my thoughts branched off and it occured to me that if literature is 'refined thought' then thoughts are based on spoken language. You may be thinking: "Well no shit dude, we think in words. What kind of epiphany is that?" My point is that when I thought hard about this I realised how important language is, not only for communicating with others but to grasp abstract ideas such as our own emotions. Of course even in prehistoric times, humans probably could understand simple emotions like 'happy' and 'sad' without using words. But I doubt they could easily understand emotions like guilt or pity. So language allows us to label otherwise intangible abstract ideas and form complex chains of thought.

My next thought was to wonder if this made things hard for people born deaf. I wondered what ran through their minds as they read books. An internal voice cannot exist for them because they have no idea what spoken language sounds like. Perhaps to them the words existed only as symbols which held sublime, indescribable meanings. Maybe because of this, reading is a more acute experience to the deaf. Or maybe it just sucks because the pleasure of reading is perhaps dependant on spoken language. This is definitely true for a lot of poetry which relies on rhythm and sounds. It was pretty late at night when I was thinking about this stuff and I was getting pretty tired so I went to sleep.

The day (or two) after, I had another thought about the topic. What language do deaf people think in, if they can think at all? This fascinated me enough to do a Google search about it. I found this page, which provided a more scientific perspective on the whole thing. Those who are born deaf (or profoundly deaf) and do not receive proper treatment can develop problems with cognitive function. If they are not diagnosed during the critical age of 21-36 months, they can suffer severe learning problems despite the fact their intelligence is otherwise normal.

So what's the 'proper treatment' for the profoundly deaf? They are taught sign language, which replaces spoken language with a gestural one. Sign language isn't like Morse code or anything, where English words are changed into gestures letter by letter. It's more like Chinese, where each word is represented by a different gesture.

I'm getting lazy now so I'll just copy paste a paragraph from the above link to conclude.

The answer to your question is now obvious. In what language do the profoundly deaf think? Why, in Sign (or the local equivalent), assuming they were fortunate enough to have learned it in infancy. The hearing can have only a general idea what this is like--the gulf between spoken and visual language is far greater than that between, say, English and Russian. Research suggests that the brain of a native deaf signer is organized differently from that of a hearing person. Still, sometimes we can get a glimpse. Sacks writes of a visit to the island of Martha's Vineyard, where hereditary deafness was endemic for more than 250 years and a community of signers, most of whom hear normally, still flourishes. He met a woman in her 90s who would sometimes slip into a reverie, her hands moving constantly. According to her daughter, she was thinking in Sign. "Even in sleep, I was further informed, the old lady might sketch fragmentary signs on the counterpane," Sacks writes. "She was dreaming in Sign."

And that was the end of my week-long chain of thought.

So you know...

2011-04-07T21:55:00.000+10:00

...how I said Multitask 2 was the best flash game ever. I take that back. This is.

Multitask 2

2011-04-05T21:58:00.000+10:00

BEST FLASH GAME EVER!

Some other things I want to share, while I've already started a post:
-I'm kinda disappointed Sucker Punch got such crappy reviews. I really thought it had potential to be a great movie (like, actually a really good movie). Of course, its still possible I'll like it because I haven't watched it yet. Anyway, let's hope Zack Snyder gets more success with his upcoming Superman movie.
-Finally watched some movies last weekend after about four movie-free weeks! I watched Dr. Strangelove and Raging Bull.
-Borrowed Maus from the school library, which was a pleasant surprise when I found it. I really think our library has the most amazing graphic novel collection. So many quality works like Sandman and stuff by Alan Moore. I borrowed Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud last year, which is essentially an essay about comics written in graphic novel form. I'm not even exaggerating when I say that it changed the way I thought about not just comics but art in general.

Okay, that turned out longer than I thought it would. There was something else I wanted to blog about too but I think I'll do that tomorrow/the day after/later when I feel like it.

127 Hours

2011-04-02T21:06:00.002+11:00

Today I watched 127 Hours. Holy crap. I'm sure everybody's heard the true story so I think everyone can safely read on but if you haven't and you don't want to know the ending then SPOILER ALERT!!!

OK when I first heard how the guy had to cut his arm off (before the movie, this was probably ages ago) I thought wow, that guys got guts what would I do in his situation? and thought nothing more of it. And then I watched the movie and it really makes you think about what that guy had to go through.

First of all, how did he manage to survive on 1L of water for like 5 days? That's crazy. Ok he cheated a little bit by drinking his own urine but that also came from that 1L and plus it's not like the urine tasted all that great.
Second, I think the movie really gets to how boring it must have been for him. Five days hugging a rock with nothing to do except chip away at it is pretty boring.
The third and most impressive thing I that made me go WOW was the last bit of the movie, the part where he chops his arm off. That in itself would've been so painful I think that guy deserves a medal or something. Not only that but he also had to do it with a tiny crappy knife AND break his arm as well. And then there are all the other things you don't usually consider when you have to cut off your arm, like how you have to cut your tendons, and because your probably tensing really really hard the pain would have multiplied. And how did those make-up/special effects people get the actor's arm to look like it was actually being cut. I'm pretty sure there were trick angles being used somewhere but it was pretty realistic.
Ok so he's cut off his arm. Then he has to walk for like a few hours to get to his bike. And his bike is four hours away from his car...by bike. Which would mean that he would have to walk (I think it would be too much to ask for him to ride his bike with one arm) probably like 8 hours. That alone would have probably been able to make me give up.

This movie made me really think hard about the value of my arms and really puts a movie about a guy who gets over a speech impediment into perspective.

Also looking forward to watching Source Code

That is all.

April Fools

2011-04-01T18:22:00.003+11:00

Firstly, someone called 'John Smith' just wrote the most amazing comment ever on my previous post. You gotta read it. I don't think the guy realises that Louie wrote the post about English but whatever. It blew my mind.

Anyway, today is April Fool's day. I spent a considerable amount of time (ie. the half minute I waited while the Crysis 2 campaign was loading) to think about something witty and ironic I could do on this blog, like I tried to do last year. Unfortunately, I couldn't think of anything genuinely funny.

Then again, the whole idea of April Fool's day is pretty unfunny. It's like a day where companies are meant to start hoaxes to show how creative they are. The artificiality of the process makes it hard to be funny. I doubt many people found these fake Artline ads very funny.

Perhaps the real purpose of April Fools day is to get people to play dumb tricks to look clever but ironically make a fool of themselves. Or perhaps I'm just miffed because I couldn't think of anything clever to do.

Also I finished the Crysis 2 campaign. Pretty cool. The main theme of the Crysis 2 soundtrack reminds me of the sound of a GPU under maximum stress. I see what they did there.

Going to the hospital

2011-03-29T14:39:00.004+11:00

I went to the hospital today with my mum to visit my grandpa, who had surgery to replace his fractured femur. This is the first time I visited because of exams and he seems to be recovering quite well. I think there a few scares about a possible infection before but the doctors said everything was looking okay.

Besides not being able to speak English, he's partially deaf and has a bit of dementia which makes him pretty temperemental when there's no family around. My parents and two uncles have pretty much set up a rotation so that there's almost always someone in his ward. It makes me wonder whether I would do the same thing in their situation.

Also interesting was that my grandpa is staying in the orthapaedic trauma ward, which was where I did my Year 10 work experience. I actually recognised one of the hot nurses.

In other news I have started playing the Crysis 2 single player campaign, which is really great.

English

2011-03-28T20:43:00.003+11:00

People often say that maths (like integration and stuff) is useless because we will never use it in our daily lives, and because we'll never go to Mathland where the language is math. True. But math enthusiasts have presented a good comeback in saying that math teaches us reasoning skills and logic, which it does (okay some of the topics don't do that at all but things like math induction and circle geometry do, plus theres superannuation questions which we do use in our lives). So now i know there's a point in doing math. OK. Fine.

But what about English? It was probably while writing my 3U essay and thinking how I didn't think Lost in Translation was about navigating the global at all (I thought it was about two people who coincidentally meet and are in the same predicament and are able to understand one another but that's beside the point). While writing this essay, I thought how close it came to ruining my entire enjoyment of the film (I actually really liked it when I watched even before we had to) but luckily I watched it again and thought it was still really good. OK this is getting off topic. My point is that when are we ever, EVER going to use the skills in English in our daily lives? It's not like we're going to go to the cinema and say "Oh hey, look at that use of lighting symbolizing his salvation from his own crisis of identity in a globalized world". And would we ever write an essay after high school? Ever? Personally I think that English in primary school was a lot more useful. We wrote how to write a letter, we learnt vocabulary, we learnt actual grammar, stuff we actually use. But maybe there are reasons to English that we learn in high school. Point them out for me in the cbox.

In short, I think English in high school is not very useful. I mean, it's not like we're ever going to go to England is it?

Office Quote of the Day: Now that I own the building I'm looking for new sources of revenue. And a daycare center...? Muahahahahahahahaha... [pause] Well I guess it's not an evil idea it's just a regular idea but, there's no good laugh for a regular idea.

P.S. OK really i made this post just so I could include that Simpsons reference because I laughed really hard at it when I saw it on YouTube today.

That is all.

A novel refreshment for this strenuous exam period

2011-03-24T22:02:00.000+11:00

http://apps.facebook.com/cokezeropromo/

In case anyone hasn't noticed, 7/11 is giving away Coke Zeros.

I claimed mine today and the cashier was like 'Anything else?' and I was like, 'Nope' and then it was kind of awkward. But I got a free drink.

Yay!

2011-03-23T13:55:00.003+11:00

Crysis 2 is out! This post was mainly posted because having an emo-looking girl at the top of my blog made me uncomfortable.

[FILLER SPACE]

MONDAY

2011-03-21T13:44:00.004+11:00

I'm not sure why, but I really like this video.

Despite the many cliches, I guess it hit a strong emotional note with me. It's pretty melodramatic but still manages to seem sincere. The song title I don't like though.

Anyway, English today went okay. I thought I wrote quite nicely, though I also thought that of my Belonging essay which turned out to be terrible. However, I had a lot of teacher feedback this time so I hope that shows through.

Studying for chemistry now, though I will try to squeeze in some maths past papers today too. Haven't done much of those this time around.

Some more cool stuff

2011-03-12T23:14:00.001+11:00

Firstly, two more guitar recordings by Edwin.

Racer X - Technical Difficulties, guitar solo cover.

Again, there's no video because of technical difficulties. lol.

And some blues funk improvisation.

Finally, here's something I made to practise my editing skills for 4U english (ok, to be honest I was bludging). It's an edit-together of videos of my cousins from my phone camera, with some upbeat jazz music on top. I have appropriately titled it 'Krazy Kids'.

Amazingly this took about 2 hours to make, despite its simplicity. I tried to be as perfectionist as I could in cutting the shots nicely. Personally I think the video's pretty cute, though I'm a bit biased because they're my cousins (and it's my video).

Edwin's Guitar Improv

2011-03-11T23:31:00.000+11:00

This is an awesome blues guitar jam that Edwin recorded and sent me.

It is also on Facebook.

It is also Edwin's birthday today. Happy Birthday Edwin!

Making exams fun!!!

2011-03-11T23:12:00.001+11:00

Since exams are coming up here are a list of things I thought would make exams fun. Listed by subjects (asian subjects only):

1. Maths: This should be fun anyway but you can set yourself questions by thinking of a shape you want to draw and then finding an equation which will make that shape. E.g. the Dark Knight symbol will involve sideways parabolas, straight lines and upright parabolas. These functions can be piece-wise or if you're really pro you can find a single equation for your shape (still haven't found one for Batman yet).

2. English: This is going to sound irresponsible since these are our HSC exams but who cares? Life's short. Just watch lots and lots of movies and claim it's for English. And you might actually use one as a related! Win-win :)!

3. Physics: Get your mum or dad to get you to build one of these and claim its for physics. Just make sure you don't let them know that they really didn't need to build it. Or actually you could tell them and watch them get super mad. Or just build it yourself.

4. Chemistry: Diet Coke and Mentos and claim it's for chemistry. Try making a rocket and you can claim its also for physics! 2 in 1!

5. Economics: Swim around in a lot of money and claim your studying cash flows in a local area.

Office Quote of the Day: It's going to take a lot more than a bullet to the brain, lungs, heart, back and balls to kill Michael Scarn!

That is all.

Crysis 2

2011-03-03T23:19:00.002+11:00

I was planning to write about how much I love the movie Lost In Translation and how analysing/writing essays about it has not turned me off but instead broadened my appreciation of it. But that will have to wait. Yesterday I installed and played the PC multiplayer demo of Crysis 2.

I have been excited about this game for a very, very long time. In fact, in May last year I made a post about it under the scandalous title of 'Technology porn'. Since then, I've probably watched the E3 trailer at least ten times as well as interviews with the Crytek developers. Here's a trailer for the multiplayer:

And a trailer for the single player:

From what I've played on the multiplayer demo, its certainly an amazing game. It's really fast-paced because everyone moves so fast. Fortunately on the demo, everyone's new to the game so you're all exploring out all the features of the game rather than trying to win. Not much else to say really. I'm getting impatient as I type because I really want to get back on.

If anyone feels like installing the multiplayer demo after reading this, you can get from one of the links here. My IGN, as always, is MrLumpy.

HELLO

2011-02-26T22:08:00.001+11:00

sup guise.

Spider Web

2011-02-21T21:01:00.004+11:00

The other day some douchebag spider spun a huge web right outside of my door, like literally 5cm away from the door. I didn't see it in time and my reaction was much like Akmal Saleh's in this YouTube video at 0:24. And then I spent ten to fifteen minutes looking for the spider on me, and when I couldn't find it, I went back into my house to change. Stupid spider.

That is all.

Things I care about

2011-02-20T01:51:00.000+11:00

I have just realised that having actual titles for my posts means I don't have as much freedom to go off on tangents if I want to make sense. This sucks because now I have to put more thought into what I will write about. Who knew that blogging needed to be so structured?

Anyway, here are my thoughts on a few things which all fall under the vague title of 'Things I care about.'

Below is an interview of Citizen Kane director Orson Welles, in which he describes a lifetime of trying to prove Hollywood wrong as "an enormous waste of spirit and an enormous waste of energy." According to the uploader, this interview was done 8 days before his death. (He died suddenly from a heart attack.) I find it very tragic that someone could describe their life in such a way. This guy made what is widely considered the greatest movie of all time and in return was hounded by the American film industry.

I want to take advantage of this sudden interest in gender issues at our school to mention my own thoughts on the matter. For a while now, I've kept a mild interest in gender equality (for both women and men). When Treskin made her speech at assembly last week I decided to listen with an open mind and found she raised points worth considering. When we use words like 'man' and 'mankind' to refer to the human race we imply it was men alone who determined the actions of our race and that it will always be this way. Of course, there are downsides to modifying our vocabulary in the name of political correctness. Sometimes, it just isn't worth it. I don't think anyone plans on following guys with gals anytime soon. (I hate that word by the way.) But it is always worth considering.

More importantly, I believe that gender equality is a topic we should treat with thoughtfulness rather than the apathy or even derision it frequently receives.

And now for something completely different, I also care about the upcoming Crysis 2 PC multiplayer demo, which looks awesome. Also, I watched Cinema Paradiso and found it to be my favourite movie I've seen for a while.

This is funny

2011-02-19T12:51:00.002+11:00

I just found this on wikipedia and found it really really really funny. This is from the article for The Hottie and the Nottie a film with Paris Hilton in it.

For its release in the United Kingdom, the film was advertised as "The Number One Film", with small print revealing its being number 1 on the IMDb Bottom 100

HAHAHAHAHA

That is all.

A Poorly Spent Friday Night

2011-02-18T23:51:00.000+11:00

I was going to make a decent post today but instead I started playing a flash game called Rebuild. Basically it's a strategy kind of game where you try to build a colony amidst a zombie apocalypse. This game is so addictive I nearly spent 2 hours on it.

Also, I've decided to start using proper titles for my posts because I have realised naming them after the day they were posted is not that funny and also kind of lazy. Expect mind-blowing post titles in the future.

MONDAY

2011-02-14T22:01:00.001+11:00

Today I put on my cadet KFF and a big black trench coat I found in my closet, then started shooting random objects with my little cousin's Nerf gun while pretending to be Clint Eastwood in some old cowboy movie. It was really fun until I started feeling self-conscious and silly.

Another nice thing that happened to me last week was that I logged into my Neopets account and got a pleasant surprise. I had managed to make a +1066.67% profit on the Neopian stockmarket. 113,250 NP isn't that much, but it was enough for me to start playing Neopets semi-regularly again. I'd stop but it's too hard because now Neopets is on my Google Chrome 'most visited' list and I don't have the heart to remove it.

So the main purpose of this post is that it's well into Year 12 and I'm feeling a bit guilty about wasting my time like this.

THURSDAY

2011-02-10T18:10:00.002+11:00

Here's an interesting news article Edwin told me about today:

A Chinese neighbourhood was contaminated with human waste after an explosion caused by sewage-stealing thieves.

The incident began early one morning in China’s Guandong province, when a narrow alleyway in a residential neighbourhood was turned into a river of raw sewage – it transpired that a septic tank truck had arrived to illegally siphon off the neighbourhood’s sewage.

However, the truck’s hose exploded, flinging sewage all over the street. The driver of the truck reportedly fled the scene of the explosion as soon as he could, leaving only his ruined hose and a street full of sewage behind.

Sewage is a valuable commodity in China – not only can it be used as manure and to produce methane, it also has a wide variety of other industrial uses.

Even the garbage collectors were annoyed – one who witnessed the event whilst he was picking up rubbish angrily remarked “All the trash I just collected – ruined! It’s all covered in filth. I had picked up some electronics too, but I can’t sell them now.”

The local fire department was summoned to deal with the mess, and apart from a foul stench it was soon contained.

At this stage, many will doubtless be wondering what it is with China, sewage and things which explode…

Original article here.

OCD

2011-02-08T21:33:00.004+11:00

Lately I've no noticed that for some reason the OCDs (Obsessive Compulsive Disorders), which were previously mild, are now becoming increasingly prevalent in my life. For example, I am now really picky about grammar and punctuation (instead of tawking lyk dis). Notice that I know start my sentences with capital letters (and so are my "I"s) and I actually used commas in the previous sentence. The fact that OCDs is underlined in red right now is really beginning to piss me off. Also I was reading this book and then I got really angry because it had a misplaced modifier. For those of you who don't know what misplaced modifiers are, here's an example:

Eagerly awaiting her birthday, Mary's presents were all picked up and admired by Mary many times throughout the course of the day.

If someone was to write this sentence and show me, here's what my reaction would have been like a few weeks ago:
"OK cool."
But if you gave that sentence to me today, this would be my reaction:
"WHAT THE HELL?!?! ARE YOU STUPID?! MARY'S PRESENTS DIDN'T EAGERLY AWAIT HER BIRTHDAY, IT WAS MARY!!! THE SENTENCE SHOULD READ Eagerly awaiting her birthday, Mary picked up and admired her presents many times throughout the day."

Also, my OCD on cleanliness is beginning to interfere with my life. I never sit down in my house with my school uniform on because the germs will get everywhere. Also, every morning, before I drink my milk, I sterilize my cup by washing it with boiling water because I'm afraid that the previous night insects were in there (also insects tend to occur a lot in my dreams. I also dream more now and I usually remember the dreams too). And I always wipe my plates clean before I put any food on them. The good news is I was never a really neat person so the fact that my room is messy is fine. It just has to stay clean.

Oh yeah, I've also grown a little bit more paranoid about stuff. Ever since that MedEntry guy said that universities can check up on your Facebook and social networking, I've been extremely cautious about what I say on Facebook and on this blog (even though if they read this blog I probably wouldn't get offered a position since I look like a person with no life (I do have a life by the way and enjoy interacting with other people)).

I hope I don't become like one of those people like Monk (Wikipedia the TV show), because although the show is cool, I don't want to end up being like that guy.

Office Quote of the day: The guys are having a little shindig of their own in the warehouse. From 2:30 to 3:15. That is the only time that Bob was available. Sort of a guys' night out. A 'G-N-O' if you will. A 'gno.' Actually it's more of a guys' afternoon in. A G-A-I. A gay. Not-- not... it's uh, not gay. It's, uh, just uh, it's a bridal shower for guys. A guy shower. An hour long shower with guys.

That is all.

MONDAY

2011-02-07T19:59:00.002+11:00

The movie below is a very amazing action scene from a Bollywood movie. Anyone who subscribes to Ray William Johnson or follows Maddox has probably already seen this. But for those who haven't...

WEDNESDAY

2011-02-02T15:50:00.001+11:00

In 2012 both Nolan's third Batman movie (The Dark Knight Rises) and the new Superman movie are scheduled to release. Being a major fan of the DC Universe, this is very exciting for me.

Zack Snyder (who directed Watchmen and 300) will be directing the new Superman movie (titled Man of Steel). I think Louie told me this a few months ago but I only became fully aware of that fact today. I think the director choice is pretty decent. Snyder's movies are always visually impressive, as long as he have too many of his trademark slow motion shots. In any case, the Nolan brothers are pretty involved (Christopher Nolan is producing) so that's reassuring. They've already casted this British guy called Henry Cavill as Superman. Judging by this photo, he'll look convincing enough with a good shave.

Much more surprising news though, was news that Anne Hathaway is set to play Catwoman in the new Batman movie. She's actually cast as 'Selina Kyle' which is Catwoman's real name so I'm guessing that her character will undergo some kind of transformation like Harvey Dent/Two-Face. Selina Kyle is also Batman's love interest in the comics and acts as both his ally and enemy so that will probably be in the movie too. Catwoman was a pretty logical choice as a character for the new Nolan film though casting Anne Hathaway was really unexpected. She looks way too happy and innocent to fit the image. But she's a great actor so I guess that's all that really matters.

Another confirmed casting was Tom Hardy (who played Eames in Inception and Handsome Bob in RocknRolla) as Bane. This is the villain in the comics who freed every inmate of Arkham Asylum to wear down Batman then went to his house and broke his back. It's a very iconic image.

I'm wondering right now how he's going to look in the movie. Nolan tries not to suspend disbelief in his Batman series by introducing superpowers or implausible mad science which is why he stayed away from villains like Mr Freeze or Poison Ivy. Bane is supposed to get super strength from a drug called Venom that gets pumped in his body. I'm guessing Nolan will handle that aspect very carefully to maintain the feel of his previous movies.

There will also be another female character, who is yet to be announced. The movie will have more sequences shot in IMAX than The Dark Knight, which will be really cool. Also, this movie will be made with the intention of making it the last, which is quite rare because usually a few loose ends are kept for future profitable sequels. Anyway, an ending for Batman will certainly be very interesting. Knowing Nolan, it'll probably be something ambiguous and abrupt like Inception.

SUNDAY

2011-01-30T11:46:00.000+11:00

Now that the holidays are ending, I wish I had made more efficient use of my time. Of all the movies I planned to watch, I've only gone through about half. I had also planned to finish my storyboard for my 4U film, but I'm only halfway through that too. However, I did manage to do a lot of physics/chemistry studying and maths tutor homework. I did manage to finish watching every episode of Dexter too. And I got my Maplestory mechanic to level 40. So I guess my holidays were alright.

Of all the movies I watched this holiday, I'm going to say my favourite was The Shining. Seriously, the scariest movie I've seen. It's about a guy who moves in with his wife and son to become caretaker of an alpine resort that will be closed for the winter. We know that the previous caretaker went crazy from isolation and butchered his family.

There is this feeling throughout the whole movie of unbelievable claustrophobia. Kubrick's movies always have these amazing sets. Look at the carpet on this picture. Out of context, its kind of silly for me to point out how threatening it looks, but in the movie there's a high-angle shot of the son playing trains on the carpet and its positively creepy.

Two scenes I particularly liked. One where the son is on his little tricycle and pedalling around the resort. The camera follows him very closely behind and its a very long take. The other is the 'redrum' scene, which I won't ruin but I found pretty scary. Also, if anyone reading this wants to watch this movie, watch out for a scene involving an old lady. It is on Empire's list of top 10 worst nude scenes.

The Departed was probably my second favourite of the movies I watched. I don't have much to say about it though except that it was really good. The ending gave me this feeling that all the events were meaningless, though I kind of liked that.

Most of the other movies I watched were pretty good too.

SPACEMAN SAM

2011-01-25T11:56:00.002+11:00

THE ADVENTURES OF SPACEMAN SAM (the final installment in the trilogy)

So finally Spaceman Sam could get down to the business of saving his foreign friends. All he had to do was cut the blue wire or the red wire so that the air leak would close up. Ok really he didn't know what to do but in all the action movies he had watched when something exciting was happening someone was cutting a wire.

So he decided to cut the green wire because on earth green means go, so he reasoned that a green wire meant go cut. He got out his scissors and cut the wire. The only problem was the wire didnt cut. For some reason the wire just bent around the scissors

"Hmmm..," he thought to himself "Maybe i need to practice first"
So he decided to cut a piece of string very conveniently attached to himself. Snip snip snip he went. And the wire cut. The only problem was that the wire was the only thing that was attaching himself to the ship. Spaceman Sam started to drift out towards space. He tried everything to get back. He tried swimming, he tried running, he even tried reverse psychology by going backwards! Nothing worked although he did actually keep going backwards.

"Wait a minute," he said to himself "I once heard about a scientamalogical experiment where this guy threw a hammer and started moving? I'll do just that"
And he did. There was a hammer conveniently stowed away in his utility belt and so he grabbed it.
"Ok, so which way do i throw it? Backwards or forwards? Well, if i throw it forwards then the gravitational attraction between me and the hammer will pull me towards the ship. But if i throw it backwards then according to some Newt's Ten Law then the action reaction thingymabob will shift me to the ship. Nah thats stupid ill go for the first one."
So Spaceman Sam threw the hammer at the spaceship. Unfortunately it hit the control panel causing an electric spark. The hammer then ricocheted into the fuel tank and caused a huge explosion. KABOOOMKAJBDGAHKBDGJHDBSJGHB it went. (yes i know there's no oxygen in space and this rules out any chance of an explosion occuring but this is fiction ok?)

All on board died instantly. As for Spaceman Sam the explosion pushed him into the gravitational field of earth and he landed in water and lived happily ever after

Jk the explosion sent him further into space and he died from the lack of oxygen.

That is all.

SPACEMAN SAM

2011-01-23T21:07:00.003+11:00

THE ADVENTURES OF SPACEMAN SAM (continued)

Spaceman Sam drifted into space and watched the Earth below. He thought he could see his house, but was confused as to why it seemed like it was in China. He watched as the clouds rolled across the sky and how the sun's rays struck upon the scraggly rock that was the earth.

Meanwhile inside the space station three russians and two germans were struggling for breath. Spaceman Sam returned to the task at hand
But soon he was distracted and
A rap started to form in his mind
For little did he know he would find
A battle from aliens of the extraterrestrial kind
And while he was in space
He picked up a mace
And smashed them right in the face.

Ok that was more like a long limerick but whatever. Anyway the extraterrestrial beings were real and they were sucking out Spaceman Sam's intelligence!! Fortunately he didn't have much
so the aliens blew up and died.

To be continued....

Sorry this one was so short.

That is all.

SATURDAY

2011-01-22T01:16:00.000+11:00

Without realising, I have allowed my holidays to fall into a pretty consistent routine. It goes something like this:

8:30AM: Alarm starts ringing. Get out of bed, turn it off, get back in bed.
8:45AM: Mum comes in. Tells me to get out of bed.
9:00AM: Get out of bed.
9:30AM: Breakfast, coffee (I like coffee now), read newspaper etc. (Wow, I sound like some stereotypical white dude.)
10:30AM - 5:00PM: Grey area. Time is spent studying and working on the storyboard for my 4U English. Up to 40% of this time is consumed by distractions like iPod games. Somewhere in there I have lunch.
5:00PM: I ride my bicycle, bicycle.
6:00PM: Dinnertime!
7:00PM: Dick around on the Internet. Lol.
8:00PM: Watch a movie/ TV show.
11:00PM: Get back on computer. If the movie was particularly good/ confusing, I'll read it's Wikipedia article.
Really LateAM: Sleep.

And that's my holidays. Some extra information. My 4U idea is a short film adaptation of 'The Tell-Tale Heart'. I feel it's going reasonably well. I've managed to watch: Every Indiana Jones movie, The Big Sleep, The Shining, Superman, Snatch, Scott Pilgrim (holy shit, almost every movie starts with an 's') and I'm a few episodes into season five of Dexter.

Also, I started playing Maplestory a bit once the new Mechanic class came out. It's definitely much more fun than I expected. I have a level 27 Mechanic right now, ign: DrCrane. Buddy me pls.

Spaceman Sam

2011-01-21T21:02:00.000+11:00

So the other day i was thinking, what did i used to do back when i didnt have a computer or didnt know how to operate the tv? I made up stories in my head that were either what i want to happen in my real life or stuff that was funny or cool. So here's one i thought of today.

THE ADVENTURES OF SPACEMAN SAM

In the far outer reaches of the Earth's atmosphere Spaceman Sam was working on the International Space Station. On board were three Russian astronauts, Ivan Atinkle, Sergei Karsakov and Vladmir Vladmir, two German astronauts Adolf Frankenfurter and Gunter Hamburg, and of course the one American on board... SPACEMAN SAM.

Things weren't actually too good right now as there were red lights flashing everywhere and there was something about something something broken out somewhere somewhere. People were panicking and running around like headless chickens, Spaceman Sam thought.
"Somebody needs to get out there and do somesing" said Gunter in a german accent.
"But who?" asked Vladmir Vladmir in a russian accent.
"I can't I just had a frankfurt" said Adolf Frankenfurter in a german accent.
"I am sorry but I need to cleanse my bladder" said Ivan Atinkle in a russian accent.
"I need to uh... cars a cov" said Sergei Karsakov weakly (in a russian accent).
Everyone then stared at the only person without an excuse.
"Vat? My name is Vladmir Vladmir! Vould you trust a man who's name was Vladmir Vladmir?"
Ok there was actually another guy without an excuse and that was... SPACEMAN SAM

"Oh hey guys WAZZZUUPPP!!!!" said Sam in an inappropriate fashion.
"Zer is a air leak in ze upper left ving of ze station. Ve need you to go fix it. Our lives are in your hands."
"Ok." said Sam.

Whilst they briefed Sam on what to do Sam wondered how exciting it would be to be outside in space! This would show his parents who thought that he wouldn't be able to be a real astronaut. And this would show the doctors who "scientifically proved" he was "mentally retarded".

"There will be blood in the water. I hope you're ready." said Vladmir ominously.
"What does that even mean? Our water is in sealed packets and I'm pretty sure they sterilised it before they gave it out to us." said Sam.
Vladmir only shrugged and put the astronaut helmet on Sam's head. And suddenly, Sam was pushed out into the deep abyss that was space.

To be continued....

Ok i actually wrote this over a couple of days because i didnt have time to finish it all in one go. The next instalment will be coming soon.

That is all.

WEDNESDAY

2011-01-19T11:32:00.001+11:00

I managed to watch Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World. Having read the comic series a few weeks ago (and really really liked it), there was one thing about the movie that I didn't really like.

Michael Cera's high pitched voice and awkward movements don't really fit Scott. In the comic he has crazy manga-like expressions and is generally a highly energetic character. So in that way the movie's not completely faithful to the comic. But looking at the movie by itself, it was pretty good.

Another book I read a few weeks ago (and really really liked) that's going to be adapted to film is Jane Eyre. It's getting produced by Focus Features, which is a division of Universal Pictures so it's probably going to be screening in most major cinemas when it comes out. Not that I'll watch it though, because like, who the hell would see it with me.

Here's the trailer:

I'm going to have to agree with whoever wrote the top Youtube comment; that is the worst font I've ever seen in a trailer. The font alone makes a pretty decent trailer look like some shitty fan-made Twilight MV.

Well, that's all I have to write. Gotta get off the computer and let my sister play Maplestory now.

MONDAY

2011-01-17T19:35:00.001+11:00

I went driving for the first time today. It was kinda scary because the car went really fast. I got my sister to take a photo:

Hope to drive again soon.

FRIDAY

2011-01-14T16:35:00.002+11:00

I returned from my holiday yesterday. After about a month away from home, everything feels unfamiliar and weird but its pretty cool to be back. I spent the day playing flash games and watching movies, which I haven't done for a while so that was good.

I really felt that I learnt a lot of things while on holiday. Seeing the lives of people in a place so different to home can make you aware of the forces that drive your own life. People behave very differently living in places that we would consider to be shitholes. I'm talking mostly about the people I met or saw while in Malaysia.

Also, I learnt that I actually don't like long plane flights. I always thought flying was cool because you'd have that little TV thing to watch during the trip. Well, this time I flew on a 8 hour night time flight from Kuala Lumpur to Gold Coast and it was probably the shittiest flight I've ever had. There was no little TV thing because we flew on AirAsia, which also has shitty seats, making sleep very difficult. On the plus side, all the flight attendants were very attractive. One of them looked a bit like Olivia Wilde which is cool because she's really hot.

My holiday was spent in three different places: Sibu, Kuala Lumpur and Gold Coast.

I pretty much said all I have to say about Sibu in my last post. Here's a picture of Malaysia's uncovered drains which I like to mention so much.

They're actually pretty dangerous because some of them are like 4 metres deep and right next to a walkway without a fence. Also, we went to this really cheap restaurant ($5 for lobster) which served crab with a hammer to crack the shell. These are like, full sized hammers straight out of a construction site or something.

I mentioned before the Malaysian traffic is retarded. Apparently my uncle pays the police an annual bribe so his family don't have to obey traffic laws in Sibu. They get to do stuff like triple parking and going twice the speed limit.

There's not much to do in Sibu. In the five days there, I managed to get three quarters of the way through Jane Eyre (which I really enjoyed, by the way) and almost finished the entire 4th season of Dexter.

Kuala Lumpur was more interesting than Sibu. Being the capital of Malaysia, there's a lot more stuff to do there. Mainly it was shopping though. For some reason, KL is full of shopping centres. According to Wikipedia there's 66 shopping centres in the city alone. They're all really big and have crazy decorations like giant Christmas trees and castles. Some of them have theme parks and market themselves as 'Entertainment Centres'. Everything's really cheap too so we bought a lot of stuff. Also we spent a night at this resort. Pretty nice place. There was a lot of spare time in Kuala Lumpur too so I managed to finish reading Jane Eyre and get halfway throught The Shipping News.

Luckily the Queensland floods didn't affect the Gold Coast but it was raining the whole time we were there. We went to the theme parks, where I sadly realised I didn't enjoy the shows as much as I did as a kid. Movie World was still cool though and the rides were pretty fun. The weather managed to clear up on the last day and we got to go on the beach.

So that's my holiday's so far. I plan to spend the rest of it watching my amazingly long list of movies as well as season five of Dexter.

A Day in the Life of Louie

2011-01-13T22:30:00.002+11:00

So some people have been complaining that my posts are getting retarded. So here's a normal post.

Today I woke up at 9.00am. After that i brushed my teeth with an Oral B electronic toothbrush using Colgate Active Plus Toothpaste. I then washed my face using my towel. After this I went and had breakfast which consisted of Kellog's Crunchy Nut Cereal with Dairy Farmer's Full Cream Milk as well as two slices of WonderWhite bread with Sanitarium Peanut Butter on one slice and Nutino Hazelnut Spread on the other. After this I went and did some work. After that I stoned for a while. And after that I talked to myself for a while on the possibility of time travel backwards. Afterwards, I played my Epiphone EL-00 guitar. Soon it was time for lunch. For lunch I had Fantastic Instant Cup of Noodles Beef Flavour. During lunch I also watched an episode of House M.D. After that it was back to some more work, stoning (but no talking to self). I soon got bored of this so I played "Get Back" by Ludacris on my phone while walking around my room like a gangster. After the track ended I played "I Love Tha Pussy" by Alpa Chino and while walking around my room like a gangster. After that I played my Yamaha UX-100 piano. Then it was time for dinner. For dinner I had two slices of WonderWhite bread with Sanitarium peanut butter on one slice and Cottees Blueberry Jam on the other. I put them together to form a peanut butter jelly sandwich. During dinner I watched "That '70s Show". After dinner it was back to work, stoning and talking to myself. After that I logged onto my computer, annoyed Walter for a bit (its actually where i got the inspiration for this blog :D) and I am now sitting here typing up this blog.
Is this normal enough for you?

That is all.

lol

2011-01-12T20:50:00.002+11:00

Raymond got me thinking about lol and its variations. Some ppl say lol. then others say lawl. then raymond says lewl. but wat about others like lowl, luwl, lul, liwl, lil, lel and lal? y does no one use these? i think im going to start a new trend by using more variations on lol. and i know as a generaly rule u always follow the 'l' with a vowel but im gangster so i always use variations such as lyl, lywl, lwl, lwwl, lrl, lrwl. oh which reminds me u can also have larl, lorl, lerl, lirl, lurl, lawrl, lewrl, liwrl, lowrl and luwrl. Happy lolling!

That is all.

bOREdOM (or should i say drilldom? hahaha)

2011-01-10T09:14:00.005+11:00

I think Vincent gets back today so hopefully things will turn normal pretty soon.

But right now i am extremely bored. when ppl say that they are dieing of boredom, i usually think that it is either a figure of speech or they are exaggerating. i have been proved (or should i say mathematically inducted? hahaha) wrong. u CAN die from boredom. i actually feel physically unwell from boredom (or maib im actually sick? who knows (or shud i say who nose? hahaha (or should i say who ears? hahaha (look at these layers of brackets (like a cake (or an onion (or.... INCEPTION!!!! (maib it should be Bracketion where you go deeper and deeper into the layers of Brackets until finally...(U REACH LIMBO!!! how low can u go, how low can u go?(and then you ride the layers of brackets back up to the surface))))))).

But not only am i physically debilitating, i am also mentally deteriorating. For example, just then when i looked at the wikipedia home page, in the news i saw the Iran Air Flight 277 crashed and the first thing i thought of was "Iran (or should i say Youwalked? hahahaha).

So if i come out of the school holidays slightly retarded (i say slightly because everyone knows you never go full retard. Check it out. Dustin Hoffman Rain Man, look retarded act retarded. Not retarded. Tom Hanks Forrest Gump. Slow, yes. Retarded, maib. But he charmed the pants off Nixon and won a ping pong competition. That ain't retarded. Never go full retard) please don't judge me.

That is all.

P.S. if you notice from the Bracketion there are actually less left facing brackets than right facing brackets. Who knows? This might all just be a bracket dun dun duuuuuuuuun

P.P.S. Hey raymond, I'M A LEAD FARMER MOTHERFUCKER!!!

Officeworks (or should i say Gardenrests? hahaha)

2011-01-04T21:20:00.002+11:00

So today i went to Officeworks (or should i say Gardenrests? hahaha) and i noticed that it was exactly like a Buy More (or should i say Sell Less? hahaha). I went in and after a while i just started playing solitaire but after like half an hour (i only won one game (or should i say i only one won game hahaha)) i got kicked off by some Nerd Herders (or should i say Geek Sheperders hahaha (or should i say Office workers hahaha)). So after playing solitaire i decided to be like Chuck (or should i say Throw? hahaha) and went looking for the secret entrance for the CIA base (or should i say the public exit for the AIC apex? hahaha). That went on for half an hour. And then it was time to go home. I cant actually remember why we were there now that i think about it.

That is all.

Sad Old Day

2011-01-01T16:58:00.002+11:00

Yeh, i've repeated this joke several times to people now but some people havent heard it yet ok? and also Old Day's Adam for yesterday (New Year's Eve geddit?!?! hahaha).

I missed the 9.00 fireworks yesterday because i forgot, but i did watch the midnight ones and i must say i was disappointed. it all started off well, and the fireworks were ok i guess (really seems the same to me every year really), but how come not a single technician thought it would be really funny if the hand on the harbour bridge put up its middle finger???? seriously when i saw that hand the first thought that popped into my head was that there might be a rude finger somewhere along, but nooooooooooo there wasnt and that ruined it for me. Other than that it was pretty good.

That is all.

SUCCESS!

2010-12-26T15:58:00.002+11:00

YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YESSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I FINALLY COMPLETED ROLLERCOASTER 3D WITH FIVE STARS FOR ALL 30 TRACKS AFTER 6 HOURS 28 MINUTES AND 21 SECONDS!!! (u can tell ive been working hard these holidays). YES!!!!

i must have spent like 2 hours at least trying to get that final star on some anal track. i needed 3200 points but i was on 3174 and then i got every single jump correctly and it felt so good. i ended up getting 3207 points WHOS YOUR DADDY ROLLERCOASTER 3D?!?!?!?

That is all.

P.S. this whole post is safe from that's what she said

IT'S CHRISTMAS?!?!?!?!?

2010-12-25T20:36:00.003+11:00

wow. today i didnt even know it was christmas until i went on fb and everyone was saying merry christmas. i remember the days when i used to get all excited by christmas and when i woke up on christmas day i could feel it was christmas. this is probably the first year i forgot it was christmas. i even did work today. not a lot but still I DID MATH ON CHRISTMAS! wow. fml

Office Quote of the Day: In the end, the best snowball isn't a snowball at all. It's fear. Merry Christmas everybody.

That is all.

FRIDAY

2010-12-24T22:50:00.001+11:00

I'm using my grandparent's computer in Malaysia now which is pretty cool. I don't feel too well because I've taken four flights in one week (From Auckland-Sydney-Melbourne-Kuala Lumpur-Sibu, had to go to Melbourne to get on the cheaper flight.) For some reason I've become really sensitive to the dry and dust-filled atmosphere inside airplanes. Luckily the humidity in Malaysia is ridiculously high so stepping out of the plane literally felt like plunging into a warm bathtub. I'm mildly jet-lagged too, though I'm having more sleep now than I've had in months.

Anyway, Malaysia's a pretty cool place. I've said this lots but it has a distinct smell because all the drains are left open so there's these big ditches along the roads filled with stagnant water. Malaysian traffic is also pretty ridiculous. We took a taxi from the airport who went at least 40km/h over the speed limit yet we were still getting overtaken. Also, all the roads (even the major motorways) are really uneven from the hot and humid weather and so driving is always an adventure. Today, I also got to see some genuine slums, with real poor people. I would've taken some photos but it didn't feel very appropriate.

Everything here is pretty cheap too. I just saw Tron in cinemas today for $3, though it had Chinese/Malay subtitles. Apart from that, I'm enjoying the exotic surrounds. You can get starfruit here, which I really like as well as fresh coconuts.

I've only been here three days so that's all I have to say. I might put off blogging about Cadet Annual when I get back to Australia because I don't want to use too much of my grandparent's precious 3G data usage. Merry Christmas guys.

so embarassed

2010-12-24T22:01:00.002+11:00

so today i went with my mum out to borrow a book, but then the library was closed so we went shopping instead. so we're looking at a soap rack and suddenly my mum just farts really loudly. naturally everyone turns their heads towards our direction and i was SO EMBARRASSED. like seriously i just took two steps away from my mum and tried to hide my face. and the thing is she didnt even hold back, like you could tell that there she didnt try to cover it up or anything. it wasnt a tiny brrp, it was a HUMUNGOUS BRBRAJGKBASHFBAJSFHBASGNB. my mum just kept walking though, like nothing ever happened. We didnt end up buying anything.

That is all.

Comedy books

2010-12-23T21:27:00.002+11:00

Have you ever noticed how there are like no comedy books? Like seriously, throughout my long and illustrious book reading career i have only ever seen four: Barry Trotter, Yes Man and some random book in the library (informative i know). Is it that people who read books are humourless robots or is it that the people who write them are humourless robots. Since i occasionally read books, i like to think that the robots are doing the writing.

That is all.

REALLY EARLY WEDNESDAY

2010-12-22T00:24:00.001+11:00

I was going to write about Annual today but I wasted my entire day. Woke up at about 11, rewatched Lord of the Rings, did some other stuff I can't remember and then finished reading the Scott Pilgrim comic series (Which is really good. I haven't seen the movie yet.) I have to leave for the airport again in about 3.5 hours time, so I'm going to try and get some sleep now.

Change in Site Address

2010-12-21T01:33:00.002+11:00

I've changed the URL of the site to try and shake off the random spam in the cbox. I've also replaced the cbox with a different one that lets me delete stuff in case that doesn't work. Unfortunately, the URL doesn't make any sense now but I think it's kind of cool.

Anyway, I just got back from Cadet Annual and it's pretty late because I got into bed and didn't want to go out because its so much better than sleeping bags. Will probably post tomorrow (or technically, later today) because I have to leave for Malaysia on Wednesday, which is pretty crazy shit.

I AM BORED

2010-12-20T23:07:00.002+11:00

To the one reader in Bangkok, today is your lucky day because its a double post!

forgot to mention that i watched Due Date the other day. It was pretty funny. Imagine The Hangover with only Robert Downey Jr. and the bearded guy with more masturbation jokes. Really this movie is only for people who like masturbation jokes cos those are the funniest bits. Oh and also a scene at the end involving a black baby. On the whole pretty funny, i thought funnier than the hangover (which i didnt really like) but somehow not as funny as something like tropic thunder beacuse it relies on too many masturbation jokes and such.

That is all.

Rollercoaster 3D

2010-12-20T14:43:00.001+11:00

So you guys may be wondering what i have been doing in the holidays. or maybe you havent. u probably havent. dont worry if you havent because you're not missing out on much. I think the most exciting thing i have done during these holidays has been to play Rollercoaster 3D on my phone. Currently i am trying to get all five stars for each track. So far i have achieved this for 13 tracks.

Oh and ive also been reading the shipping news. So far, from what i can gather its about knots.
I have also watched blade runner. Pretty disappointing, there is no running on blades whatsoever. For some reason blade runner sounds like a good title for an ice skating movie.

There's also a new movie called The Fighter, with Christian Bale in it. Looks good.

I watch one episode of House a day. I have not watched any episodes of Chuck yet. The office is not airing over the christmas holidays so there probably wont be any quotes for a while.

I'm going to go cut my toenails now.

That is all.

Golden Globe Awards

2010-12-16T22:01:00.002+11:00

ok i realise that no one really cares but im really pissed off about the nominations for the golden globes, but hey, nobody's reading this right now anyway. like seriously, Alice in Wonderland got nominated for Best Musical or Comedy Motion Picture. How f****** slow must the year have gone by for musical and comedy's this year? and there were plenty of other good comedy movies as well, like Get Him to the Greek, Date Night, Hot Tub Time Machine, I Love You Phillip Morris. And i havent seen any of the other movies but they look kinda crap too. Apart from All The Kids Are Alright all the other films (Burlesque, The Tourist (what happened to Johnny Depp?)) have a rotten rating on rotten tomatoes. The Tourist has a rating of 19% and it got nominated. NINETEEN PERCENT!!! Well actually the other movie Red has a 70% rating but it looks more like an action movie. i know sometimes rotten tomatoes isnt really an accurate measure of how good a film is but it really is good at calculating the probability that i like a film. so thats my rant for today.

Office Quote of the Day: You know when people say, getting fired was the best thing that ever happened to them? I feel sorry for those people. That's? The best thing? Really? Yugh!

That is all.

Asians

2010-12-15T20:49:00.002+11:00

(this post applies to ppl with really fobby parents)

Have u ever noticed that whenever you go out with your parents and theyre talking to a white person, they always speak slower, louder and more clearly? And they always repeat words over and over again. It's like white people think all asian people are mentally impaired. Kinda reminds me of the hamish and andy interview with borat:

Andy: So how is life in Kazakhstan? (slowly)

Borat: Why are you talking to me so slow? Are you a retard?

Office Quote of the Day: (the office is playing charades and Dwight has Asian on his head. Pam is trying to tell him who he is)
Pam: Okay, if I have to do this, based on stereotypes that are totally untrue, that i do not agree with, you would maybe not be a very good driver.
Dwight: (shocked) Aw, man, am I a woman?!

That is all.

End of School

2010-12-14T21:47:00.002+11:00

Yay. It's the obligatory celebration for the end of school!!! I actually have sort of mixed feelings about the holidays because i know that ill be spending most of it doing math, physics and chemistry. Also i need to start filming my 4u short film. No school also means i have no excuses to turn on the computer anymore to post. Fortunately i had the foresight to make up various assignments for which i need the computer.

I dont even know why Vincent told me to blog. With Vincent, Tim, Edwin, Stupid Artar and Alex on annual camp ive basically lost 95% of my viewership. The other five is comprised of those randoms who keep posting ads in our cbox to read their blog. And fear not constant readers for i will have limited time to view movies and there will probably be limited movie related posts for the coming weeks.

Since its the end of the year, here's a list of highlights which occured:

1. It was also our year for prefects and they've done a pretty good job...so far. (Apart from the christmas things. What about jews like Taseen and Pop who need to celebrate Hannukah?)
2. It was our year for school musical and it was pretty good to watch.
3. I hit one hundred friends in facebook!
4. Newbies came to our school. And i still havent made any friends.
5.I CROSSED FALKO ADERMANN IN BASKETBALL!!!!
6. We started the HSC. Some might say that this isnt a highlight but i really really enjoyed studying hard for exams and then getting raped.
7. Vincent, Falko, me and lindy did shakespeare which we won and then lost.
8. I CROSSED FALKO ADERMANN IN BASKETBALL!!!!!
9. Inception got released.
10. We got our senior common room, which kinda stinks but its nice to have a couch to sit on.

Office Quote of the Day: My whole life, I believed that America was #1; that was the saying. Not "America is #2", England is #2, and China should be like 8.

That is all.

FRIDAY

2010-12-10T20:50:00.001+11:00

Pretty excited about going to annual tomorrow. Straight afterwards, I'll be going to Malaysia. It's possible I might not update until about the 10th of January, so hopefully Louie will start blogging again.

Enjoy the holidays!

WEDNESDAY

2010-12-08T17:50:00.002+11:00

Today I got my driver's license. Holy shit. I can imagine that most people found little trouble going through the process. However for me, it was unbelievably nerve racking.

Firstly, there was the problem of booking the DKT (Driver Knowledge Test) in the first place. I accidentally booked for the day before I planned to go and because they don't refund your $38 if you fail to turn up, my parents had to pay for the test twice. That annoyed them a little. I also didn't realise I needed proof of address until I handed my application in. That caused a bit of trouble too.

In the test itself, there's this section of thirty questions where you're only allowed one error. About five questions into the test, I made a mistake. For the past week I've noted how embarassing it would be if I failed the DKT. I mean like, nobody fails right? So you can imagine the pressure I felt when the test suddenly turned to sudden death mode. The low point was about halfway into the test, there was one question I was really unsure about. Fortunately, I got it right but by then I was almost shitting my pants.

I've got my license now. The photo is pretty bad because I'm wearing my PE uniform and I'm not allowed to smile but it could be worse. Straight afterwards, I went to the library and borrowed Easy Rider, an MA15+ movie. When asked for proof of age, I was very happy to show my license. Unfortunately, I can't drive anytime soon because I'll be in New Zealand in two days (holy shit!) and straight afterwards, I'll be going to Malaysia until sometime in January. So it was kind of pointless to get my license now, but I'm very happy I got it over and done with.

MONDAY

2010-12-06T21:54:00.003+11:00

Well, exams are over but getting results back has proven more stressful than doing the exams themselves. All the things I looked forward to doing after exams don't seem so fun anymore and instead of adopting a 'Hey it's the end of year, let's bludge!' attitude, school has opted to get straight back to work.

Replaying levels of Crysis Warhead has probably marked the high points of my past few days. I've also managed to watch some movies. Straight after 4U maths, I went with everyone else to see Harry Potter and I thought it was pretty good. I actually felt Dobby's death scene was incredibly sad. At home, I also managed to watch Gattaca, The Seventh Seal and Singin' in the Rain.

Gattaca is a science fiction film, about a future where people are discriminated by their genetic makeup. The protagonist has ambitions of becoming an astronaut but is unable to because of his genes. Straight after his birth, the doctors take a sample of his blood and predict that he has a 99% chance of getting a heart condition and a life expectancy of about 30 years. I actually first watched this movie back in the good old days of commerce with Mr Flood but only saw the first half hour or so. Anyway it's thoughtful stuff with effective cinematography that lends the film a subdued yet uplifting tone.

The Seventh Seal is set in medieval Sweden, where the bubonic plague has taken hold of the country. It begins with a knight striking a deal with Death over a chess game. Their continued game over the course of the movie serves as an engaging plot device. Strong arguments on religious faith and existence are made, which reflect the director's (Ingmar Bergmann) own questioning of God. Sounds difficult to watch but it's an entertaining movie. I'd recommend it to people who like watching this kind of stuff. (I know that sounds kind of stupid, but you know what I mean.)

Leaving my favourite until last, above is a scene from Singin' in the Rain. If there's anyone who feels bad about staying up late, then this video will hopefully make them feel better. (You can watch it without seeing any movie spoilers.) Gene Kelly, who plays the main character here is an unbelievably good tap dancer and there's some seriously cool videos if you look him up on Youtube.

What I Hate About Summer

2010-12-06T19:51:00.002+11:00

Everyone seems to love summer. I don't. Here's a list of reasons why:

1. It's hot. Like REALLY HOT. (safe)

2. There are always insects around. Have you noticed most insects come out when it's summer time. Especially mosquitoes. I hate mosquitoes.

3. For some reason I'm not really a fan of sunny weather. No darkness for crime fighting duties.

4. Nights are shorter which mean there is less time for crime fighting duties.

5. Ya mum likes summer.

Office Quote of the Day: I am on the first hot sales streak of my life. I think it all comes from feeding Ceci because, no matter how much she resists, I sell her those carrots. And let's be honest if I can make mushed carrots seem better than a boob... I can pretty much sell anything.

That is all.