Birthdays and Basterds

[ warning: you might get very hungry after reading this post ]

Wowee~ September is really a birthdays galore! Let's just have one picture for one birthday celebration here. Or maybe a couple of pictures if there are pictures worth showcasing!

Jiamin's 21st (surprise by NJCSB members @ Hall8)
In the background, hanging on the window, is a pre-Hari Raya celebration deco =X =P
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Mark's 21st!
Attended by part of Pava, it was a day of fun-filled laksa, childhood photos and... durian cake!

Can you spot the one who doesn't enjoy it? LOL. I miss the cake already =(
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Valencia's 21st!
GYPSies! I just like using this word =P

And that day marked the unauguration of SPBA. =X Where's our t-shirt design??

And here's presenting to you a Life, Curious Paparazzi Special:
STUDENT CAUGHT ON CAM FOR GOSSIPING
by Wilson Ng

PASIR RIS, Singapore - Vanessa, co-founder of SPBA, was caught on camera for gossiping at Elias Green - a very uluated condominium - last Saturday evening, a Life Curious paparazzi revealed.

When she realised that a photographer was secretly snapping at her, the twenty-one year old student raised her hands in defense, and attempted to shoo the camera-man away.

Loy, a witness while attending a party there, said, "She was really animated in the way she talked. It sounded like she had something really exciting to say."

Vanessa, along with other members of the SPBA - namely CWJ, LLW and WN - were attending a 21st birthday party at the Pasir Ris condominium. Valencia, who is also a co-founder of SPBA, was the birthday girl.

Valencia said, "I really enjoy the presence of gossip at my birthday party. I'm looking forward to further sessions in the near future."
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LOL, I can't believe I actually was boliao enough to do that. But it is an exercise in practising my news-writing skills. Shall take it as COM204 revision =P No offense to the people mentioned. All in good fun =DD
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Huiying's 19th!
Chio right! Done by Luting and Huijun @ JP's icing house. Really impressive work =) It tastes great, btw.

PAVAs + Roomies! The tissues on our hands are the cakes.
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Dad's Birthday!
@ Fo You Yuan Vegetarian restaurant. Am in love with Canon Camera's colour-accent function. No prizes for guessing what colour it's accenting here.

Coca-Cola should pay me. Such a nice pic! =P

Vegetarian Pig's Trotter. Yes, you read that right. The 'skin' and 'meat' tastes great, as contradictory as they seem.

The restaurant's signature self-made ice cream desserts!! So pretty right!

Mum and dad and the replacement birthday cake. Not using traditional birthday cakes seems to be the trend now. See below (Colin and Bernard's birthday).

The powdery chocolatey coating, with the soft, cold, creamy interior.... One word: YUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.
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Colin & Bernard's Birthday!
Celebrating at....

...Manhatten Fish Market! Taken using Bernard's DSLR worth thousands of dollars. Slurp.

Our replacement birthday 'cakes' (mooncakes). From Four Seasons. Durian flavour. 'Nuff said. I can almost smell it now.
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Grandma's Birthday!
At Ah Yat Seafood Restaurant @ Turf City.

A traditional must-have: 寿桃.

Crabs on ice. Not crabs ice-skating, but cold crabs.

Baby abalone.

Salted BBQ prawns - crisped to perfection.

Each family had send a representative to serenade grandma. I sang 屋顶 =P

Happy birthday mama!

*Sigh* kids.. But you'd be surprised. Some adults do that too.
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PHEW. That's the end of Birthdays Celebration in September. Don't know if there's more coming. But anyway, here's a review of a great, great movie I caught with the army 'old men', Inglourious Basterds.

I give the movie:





The reason why you should be attracted to watch this movie should not be Brad Pitt - it should be its writer/director, Quentin Tarantino.

Trust the outrageous film veteran - he truly knows his stuff: how to thrill, engage and move the audiences to laugh, cry and maybe even scream. If those qualities are not what you're looking for in a filmmaker, I don't know what will satisfy you.

Basterds is indeed an utterly-satisfying movie experience. Kicking off the movie is a nail-biting sequence involving a Nazi officer (the brilliant Christoph Waltz) interrogating a French-man in his countryside home, attempting to dig-out the whereabouts of a missing Jewish family. The scene starts off slow, then tightens the clockwork of events to the point of suffocation, then ending with a shocking tragedy, but not without the escape of a young Jewish girl, who proves tentamount to the advancement of the plot.

The next chapter of the movie tells the story of a team of American soldiers led by hillbilly officer Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) - the Basterds, they call them - as they're are infamous for their missions to scalp Nazis. This plotline, along with an undercover German actress (Diane Kruger) working for the British, come together as three gripping stories intertwining to showcase Tarantino's extravagant reimagining of Hitler's assasination.

The result is amusing, suspenseful, and filled with the wacky director's trademark violence and humour. People might complain about the long running-time (153 minutes), but for those who appreciate a good movie, every single pivotal scene in the film is a delight for the senses.

While Pitt is a hoot to watch, and Kruger flexes her acting muscle to include substance in a side-character, it is Christoph Waltz's portrayal as the notorious "Jew Hunter" that steals the scenes from the two familiar faces. His command of French, German, English and even Italian (extremely apparent in one classic scene of hilarity) is impressive, so is his switch between cool-menace and cold-blooded insanity. Waltz, as you might note, clinched the Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival for this role.

FINAL SAY: Outrageous, tense, funny and heartbreaking - Inglourious Basterds is a masterpiece, coming off as both startingly original, as well as a homage to old-style German war movies.
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Oh my gosh. I haven't finished studying!!

To all CS fellas: All the best for our quizzes!

Take care, people!