The Mahjong Days

Ok, firstly, there's something quite important that happened. But I don't want to mention much 'cos I don't want to remember it. Haha. (But FYI, I'm over it le)

I failed my driving test. Ouch. Even typing that sentence makes me wince. I should've passed! Yeah, of course, everyone who fails says that. But seriously, I mounted a kerb that I never mounted before during practise! Argh. And my instructor told me the tester I got is super nice. I should've passed if not for that stupid (immediate failure) mistake!

Grr. But ya, really, I'm over it (only sayang 'cos must fork out another $100+). And now I know quite a few people who didn't pass during first attempt =x Haha, let me be comforted for awhile can or not =p

Anyway, met up with zhiwei and fungi for dinner @ BPP right after test. All that laughing makes one forget ;) Then there was mahjong with cousins after that. So ya, totally forgotten 'bout the matter.

Met up with weilong to check out Japan airfare. Got a $751. Tomorrow going down to settle. Then yoketeng came along.

Went far east jalan jalan.

Then met up with them + bao yuan for mahjong @ my house.
Yay, Christmas came early.

Met up with Jean and Wanting @ shokudo raffles city. Supposed to be a section outing but wow, only three of us turned up. But yeah, it was fun, still.

Rosti - the sour cream rocked at first; then it just felt weird in my stomach.

Credit-card thin curry-tuna pizza. It's nice.

The 'section' outing. Joe and Julian where are you!?

Went to watch Bolt after dinner. Seriously enjoyed it!

Quite Awesome

Star Power:



Filmed in 3D format, Bolt is one of the very first movies to be screened in that format here in Singapore. Although I didn't catch it in it's supposed glory, watching this in a normal GV cinema was enough for me to appreciate how well this film was drawn.

Brought to you by Walt Disney Animation Studios, this animation is arguably the second-best after Wall-E this year. With great effects and very hilariously-written characters (Rhino the hamster is an immediate favourite now), both the adults and children in the audience were laughing their heads off.

The story is also well-written (about a dog who thinks he has superpowers because of his character in a hit TV series) and engaging.

FINAL SAY: This is a roadtrip you don't wanna miss. And in the words of Rhino: "Let it begin!!!"

I think I will watch this is 3D with my brother. It'll be worth it.
~

Besides Bolt, I also caught Cape No.7 (aka 海角七号)

Taiwan's Film Come-back

Star Power:



For those still clueless about this movie, here's what you've missed out:
It recently garnered 4 Golden Horse Awards, and it already is the biggest-ever movie in Taiwan, smashing even Titanic's records. It revived the career of Van Fan and it's music soundtrack is massively-popular now.

Well, what made it so successful?

1. Tear-jerker of a plot which crosses a WWII love-story with a modern one, in the form of 7 love-letters addressed to an old address, which is Cape No.7.

2. Good-looking leads. Van Fan and Chie Tanaka made the romance sizzled in the film.

3. Hilarious supporting characters. That old uncle who insisted he's a super-star is already a fan-favourite in Taiwan.

4. Great music. 无乐不作 and 国境之南 from the film's soundtrack are worth the listen.

Although the relatively uneven pacing (too much going on; what's the main point of the movie, anyway?) could be improved, but it already is one of the feel-good movies of the year.

FINAL SAY: A much-needed and gladly-welcomed revival of Taiwan cinema. Recommended.
~

Played mahjong today again. Tsk, 3 mahjong sessions in 4days.

Okay, shall blog about Britney's new album, Circus, next time. It totally rocks, btw.

Take care, peeps!

Celebrate with 苏智成 & 陈天文

Can you imagine army guys, 20 years of age, going "Waaalll Eee"? What's worse, they try to do it with a robotic sound.

That's the effect the latest Disney/Pixar film has on people of all ages. Caught this masterpiece of a film during my nights-out with my army buddies, and yeah man, it was good.
I give the film:



We know Disney/Pixar can never go wrong. Toy Story, Monsters Inc, Finding Nemo, Ratatouille... just to name a few modern classics.

And to add to that list, now there's Wall-E.

Astounding animation aside, Wall-E carries an important message for us humans living on Earth. The media and the entertainment industry have cooked up many 'save-the-environment' campaigns recently that it's getting sick. (e.g. The Live Earth concert that wasted more resources than it aims to save; Leonardo DiCaprio's Eleventh Hour half-baked documentary; and M. Night Shyamalan's retarded movie The Happening)

But all it needs is one beautiful animation to make us all sit up and take notice.

FINAL SAY: Charming. Romantic. Adorable. Relevant.
~

Celebrated my Grandma's birthday at my uncle's newly-opened Teochew Kitchen restaurant @ Changi Village. Even celebraties like 苏智成 & 陈天文 were there.


~

Wow, there are seriously a lot of people's birthdays in September.

Yay, celebrating mid-autumn festival next week together with dad's birthday. Looking forward to another day of good food.

Take care, peeps!

Dessert Treats

First things first, I've got my Silver for my second-year IPPT! Which means $100! Which means... treating my friends -.- Haha.

Ya, I've spent like 30% of it on treating people - strangely, all on desserts.

Wednesday night met up with jm to go haji lane to get a present. But before that, treated her with MOF dessert.

I've been there 3 or 4 times but i still can't get enough of the desserts (forget about the ala carte, seriously). I don't understand how can a person who's so tam jiak (her mother's words) not know about MOF desserts, but in the end she was impressed. We ordered the green tea ice cream with fried-warm sweet potato (heavenly!!) and she insisted on a strawberry gelato. So yup, $13.30, quite cheap for a sweet treat =)

Haji Lane was disappointing (for her first time there; mine second) but since it was already 9+ pm, it's inevitable that so many shops were closed. But we did see some interesting vintage stuff @ a shop:

The original Ocean's 11 movie poster starring Frank Sinatra!

This could well be Miss Ho Poh Fun's wardrobe (only NJ - and a few RJ - students can understand this).

I wonder if it's still working..

In the end we didn't get the present. Both of us were damn tired, but thank goodness her work starts at 11pm the next day and I have battalion off for thursday and friday. Yay.
~

The next dessert treat would probably be with Fungi, Yeewen and Zhiwei. But before that, we (minus zw) met for dinner at 文东记 @ Bukit Timah. Here's the delectable spread:

Home-made (from L-R) barley, lime, barley.

The sumptuous chicken with our pyramid-shaped rice (i ate 2 plates). Yumm.

Yeewen recommended this fried beancurd with mayo. 外脆内软... sedap!

Okay all this talking about food just gets me hungrier. Later, we met zw for dessert @ Canelé Pâtisserie Chocolaterie (whoa, that was a mouthful). Jm works there and she keeps raving about the desserts so we have to try. My treat again -.-

And this is the highly-recommended best-seller Le Royale. It's damn delicious. Quite the perfect dessert. $7.

After which we went to Cine-Max to rent a room and catch a movie (thai horror flick Alone). Standard horror with standard twist. Then we (minus yw) went for a drink at Heeren's The Balcony bar.

I don't really drink well, so one cup of vodka (Caiprioski) was enough for me.
~

Caught two movies over the weekend. Here are my reviews. I bet some people are just gonna scroll through =p

I give the film:



IN A FEW WORDS... Prince Caspian is utterly useless in this movie (they should just call it Chronicles of Narnia: Part 2) but overall, it's surprisingly humorous and well-filmed. You'll fall in love with the beautiful landscapes... and that's about it.
~

Next up, Kung Fu Panda

I give the film:



IN A PARAGRAPH... Anything branded with the name Jack Black and you know it's going to be good. Plus Angelina Jolie, Dustin Hoffman, Lucy Liu, Jackie Chan... needless to say, Kung Fu Panda doesn't disappoint. It's laugh-every-minute good fun - this is probably DreamWorks' best since Shrek (the first one, not the other two mediocres). You'll not regret watching this =)
~

Been watching 超级星光大道 3 recently and I must say I'm hooked! There are two Singaporeans who've made it into the TOP10, namely 黄靖伦 and Sugianto. Share their videos next time. They're making us proud, woohoo!

Take care, peeps!

Nocturnal

For the Good Friday and the weekend, I only went out after 6pm. I'm becoming nocturnal! Well, not exactly. I still sleep before day-break. Anyway, watched 2 movies this weekend. Went for my first CO (Chinese Orchestra) concert since don't know when.

Firstly, Horton (aka Horton Hears a Who!)
I give the movie:



Now I know why critics are raving about this film - simply because it's good! Really hilarious and faithful adaptation of the beloved children's book. The effects are quite fabulous (the reconstruction of Whoville alone is worth your money). The producers did the right job in hiring comic talents Jim Carrey and Steve Carrell to helm the lead characters. They're simply a hoot!

FINAL SAY: Carries some hidden messages and morals, which is interesting to explore. Overall a very enjoyable movie for everyone.
~


Secondly, Vantage Point
I give the movie:



Really interesting premise of an assasination of US president told from 8 points of view. Boasts a stellar ensemble of actors including Dennis Quaid, Sigorney Weaver and William Hurt. Throughout the movie, we're taken back to 12pm (the time of the assassination) at least 5 times, to introduce to us a different point of view to the plot. (This drew unnecessary giggles from the audience)

But what really killed the movie was how impossible the story unfolded, introducing new twists and new characters as if just for the sake of shocking the audience. Some people might think it's cool, but I think it defeats logic.

Good point in Vantage Point is that it has one of the most intense car chases caught on film since The Bourne Ultimatum (2007).

FINAL SAY: Interesting but far-fetched storyline. Average entertainment.
~

Watched Vantage Point with zirong, baoyuan and his gf. First time seeing Hannah. Thank you for going to my concert in 2006! If you guys still remember haha. Talked about Mas Selamat and baoyuan's MLM.

Hey Fungi! My friend also went Eunos for his MLM. But you didn't sign up for it right? I think there's no right or wrong. It's just that you have so much time on your hands, nothing to lose right? (I hope)
~

Went for sze's sis (aka hui ern) CO concert (swiss cottage secondary aka 瑞士村中学 - haha I like the chinese name!) @ Republic Poly Cultural Centre. This new polytechnic looks freakin' modern and nice lah!

Anyway, it's not bad. Been awhile since I've been to a CO concert. I actually enjoyed it.
But oh my gosh lah, they actually prepared 3 encore pieces!! For a concert band if they play 2 it's already considered quite thick skin. But well, they had 3. Lucky 3 were not bad.

This was their first encore piece. It was actually Jay Chou's 菊花台:






It's actually not bad =)

Some pics we took @ the concert:

Serkun, sze, sze's sis aka hui ern with the sunflower we bought for her which sze embarrassingly waved wildly at the start of the concert, and me with a fat face. Oh man, it must be SDC's nasi lemak.

Me with bloated face again.

And.. the ultimate photo of the night:

Serkun what you doing!? LOLOL.

After the concert went to Causeway's Pasta Mania to eat. Damn hungry. Thanks to the 3 encores.

Witnessed a near-fight. An ah pek was picking up a chair and trying to fling it to an ah lian in Yoshinoya. Whoa I tell you ah, if the ah pek really fling the chair over, seriously...

I'll whip out my cam to take video. =P

Eh, now you send such things to STOMP can get $50 NTUC voucher leh (my driving instructor said). That's why now accidents got soooo many by-standers.

Okay, got to sleep le. Tomorrow island-wide driving. Hope can get a feel of the auto jeep.

Last but not least...

Only sze and serkun will understand. But don't be mistaken, I really admire tanya chua's music!!

Take care, peeps!

Loong Weekend

I'm going to try to keep this short, 'cause I've just completed an exhaustive list of the TOP40 movies of 2007. I'm quite excited about it. It's literally ten-times longer than my RANDOM Awards list, but ten-times better. I'll post it next week if I can. Need some touching up.

Hmm. Had a long weekend 'cos I took off on thursday (just for the heck of it) and a half-day off on friday (just so I can sleep one more night at home).

When I woke up on fri morning discovered I got sore-eyes. Yay. Which means one day MC.

Yea. Friday night went to watch Beowulf with zhiwen. Wanted to catch Stardust but it was all sold-out! See, I knew it'd be good. Bumped into soonbeng and farhan @ cine. Soonbeng said stardust is good. Dammit.

Anw, I give Beowulf WooooW (3.5/5)

This is going to appear in my TOP40 list also. Check it out to see where it's ranked =)

Anw, this movie is entertaining but frustrating. It's good because of the grandeur of the poem it is based-upon, and the masterful technology used to realise the text on-screen. But it's precisely this CGI that fails the film.

PLUS POINTS: Although the starting scene was as stilted as Shrek's animation, there are some really eye-popping visuals along the way. The producers / animators succeeded at the sweeping landscapes of mountains and seas; and the dragon (which only shows up at the end) is a terrifying feast for the eyes. I can say it's the best-drawn dragon ever to appear on screen. The characters' bodies and faces are also sickly-realistic. On a side note, I have to say they handled the sexy-mama-angelina-jolie-meets-beowulf scene very well. That's the reason why it's NC16 =x

FLAWS: Why can't they invest the money into a live-motion picture? I'm sure it'd be extremely impressive, and I dare-say, on par with LOTR trilogy. The animation makes the characters un-feeling and emotionless, despite them looking scarily-real.

LAST-SAY: Exciting at parts, albeit being a little lengthy on the storyline (but it's based on an ancient poem, so, oh well). Can marvel at the visuals, but don't bother feeling for the characters. You'll blame yourself in the end.

~
Played mahjong with zhiwei serkun and fungi (again) on saturday. won a bit. We're thinking of something more outdoor-sy the next time round. Don't want to always be cooped up in that air-con room playing mahjong, listening to the same chinese songs =p and ordering mac =x =p

Booking in tonight.

Take care, peeps!

9-Hour Kbox-ing!?

Firstly, thanks yr, sk and viv for liking my previous post. Spent quite long putting it together. Am proud of it =P

Peijun, thanks for laughing at my video.. AT WORK. Lol. But glad you enjoyed it. =D (Malu!!)

And vivien, guess what? I did something very stupid. I burned EPISODE 2 instead of 1. Like !!??!! right? Ahhh, one CD-R wasted like that =x but don't worry, that just means it's possible to burn. So, yup. I'll pass you some day (can exchange for that chicken essence you kop-ed for me, hee). Oh no, I've a feeling you'll spam my tagboard again.

Anw, back to the topic. Do you know the meaning of crazy? Crazy = singing THREE sessions of Kbox for TWO-days straight!!!

The First
It all started on friday night. Lamerz (minus fungi and geraldine) met up @ Clementi for a kbox session. 'Cos zhiwei's friend working @ that branch.. so we thought we could get an offer (in the end not much of an offer, but still got free food, so thanks, Yuren!). Ya, so that was the FIRST session.

The Second
Promised wenjie quite long ago that I'll 'K' with him soon on saturday morning. So there we are. Straight from the previous night (save for my 7hours sleep), I'm back at Kbox again. This time - AMK branch.

The Third
During my SECOND session, my dad sms-ed me and said my mom wants to K. He said she was feeling moody, so I guess, a 3-hour kbox session will make her more alive. So... there I was again, BACK AT AMK BRANCH WITH 1HR BREAK IN BETWEEN. The lady at the counter recognised me. We sang till 7pm.

So there yer go, it feels like I've just been put through a 2-day singing crash course. But it's fun =) =P AND CRAZY.

Anw, before I end my year-end-list of movies, I've got two more to add on. Happy to say, they were above average.

The first one is RATATOUILLE. I bought the vcd to put into my mp4 to watch during my BDS (or commonly known as COS) duty on deepavali. I just returned to my unit from signals course so I sorta expected them to give me public-holiday/weekend duties. BLEAH. But Thank goodness I had this film to accompany me. Being stuck in an office alone for 24hrs is no joke.

I give the movie W o o o o o W (5.0/5)

It's about a rat who loves to cook. He meets a loser-ish human in a famous restaurant in Paris restaurant who doesn't know how to cook, and they are a match-made in Heaven. Or so we thought.

Ratatouille is common Disney/Pixar fare - which means to say, it's an instant classic. You will not watch a better animation this year (have you heard the less-than-encouraging reviews of Bee Movie?).

Brad Bird (director of Ratatouille and The Incredibles) just gets better. And he was already so good! This film is a result of passion and love for your art.

LAST SAY: Brilliantly funny and beautiful at the same time. You just have to love it =)


The second movie I watched this week was The Game Plan. Watched it with szern. Ya, I got two free tix. Were both looking for something nice to watch. There didn't seem to be anything interesting in the cinemas. Game Plan was the best-bet. I'm jus glad it paid-off =P

I give the movie W o o o o W (3.5/5)

Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson. Never thought he was a credible actor. Just know that he was a bankable star for companies who want to milk ca$h out of him in forgettable action movies (do you remember The Scorpion King, Doom, The Rundown? If you do, good for you and him).

But this movie changed my perception. He proved he could handle comedy and drama at the same time, and that is what this movie is about. Besides, a recent 8days interview also showed that he is quite a witty 'rock' too =P

The first-half was funny. With the usual Disney family-friendly gags, which are still reliable for laughs. The second-half was surprisingly touching.

LAST SAY: Unexpected dramatic second-half saved the movie from being just another mindless Disney fluff. The Game Plan is both funny and touching. Although it's commercial and conventional, but it's worth-it.


Alright, I've to book-in le. I got guard duty tomorrow!! On a sunday!! -.-

Like I told you, I expected it le.

Oh well, take care, peeps!