2012 Review

Again, my mom got some free tickets to watch this movie. If not, I don't think I'm going to watch it because I'm not keen to really watching it at the first place. It's not that I don't like Roland Emmerich's work, it's just not my cup of tea. Anyway, my movie starts at 10.30am which happens to be the first show of the day. So I had to wake up early to go to 1 Utama which is pretty far from my house in Kajang. Prior to leaving the house, I saw a review on the movie so I had my expectations set for me. Actually it's the same expectations that I had even before I saw the review. I also knew that the movie was 2 and a half hours so I prepared myself for that stretch of time without being able to go to the loo.

So for those of you not in the know, the movie is based on the Mayan myth that the world is going to end on the 21st of December 2012. That date was speculated because it happened to be the last date on the Mayan calendar. Whether it's true or not, nobody knows except our God almighty. And just a fact to slip in here, the Muslim believes that End of Days will happen on a Friday, and the 21st of December 2012 IS a Friday. The movie starts with some scientists in the year 2009 predicting a massive solar explosion that will disrupt the gravitational balance of the Earth, causing drastic movements of the tectonic plate hence utter catastrophe. In simple English, its a bad thing to us. But of course, who would believe them. As the year goes by, the theory gets more true and the superpowers of the world gets ready for it. Fast forward to the year 2012 and the catastrophe strikes and chaos is everywhere. The story is not very heavy on story although its 2 hours and 30 minutes, but for the story it has, it touches all of the moralities that we expect to see during a mass chaos. Directed by Roland Emmerich, which is the guy who also did the American version of Godzilla, or known by the Japanese just by the name of Zilla. He also did Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow. See the similarities? Yes, he likes destroying stuffs. Therefore expect to see top notch world destruction effects in this movie.

In my opinion, the movie was a big ride. Huge effects and there's lots of em. All of the famous places in the world gets destroyed except for the holy land in Arab because the director was smart enough not to anger the Muslim community who takes serious respect to our religion. But the places which got destroyed really got destroyed good. The usual suspense you would come to expect from this kind of movie is also present. Overall, a good movie although I think 2 and a half hours was pretty long. Go with your friends, this is a friend flick for the destruction parts. Owh it's actually a family flick too. Some family values slipped inside it. And a pinch of humanity lessons. Nothing really groundbreaking although there literally are (pun intended). For a feast of top notch Hollywood visual effects, have at it. If you're a fan of Roland Emmerich, you would instantly be familiar with this work of his.

End of the world is rated 7 out of 10

To tell you the truth

I really, really don't like to blog about emotions, people, society and all of this trivial life stuff. Don't know exactly why.

Maybe and just maybe I don't like to use my free time online to make myself more stressed at life. That's why you don't see me blog a lot about people, only sometimes so that I can have a wide audience.

But as always, each men (and women) to their own.

3 kinds of people

Admit it, the internet is filled with people who is not very bright and like to say things only to make other people upset. But amidst the sea of those people, there are a few people who makes sense. That few people who does inspired me to write this post.

I do a lot of thinking. Sometimes too much that I strayed into things that are way too deep. Anyway after much thinking I've manage to categorize people into a 3 categories. Note that in no way I am saying this is what it should be rather it is my personal opinion.

Believers

We aren't living under anarchy. Our lives are determined by a more superior body usually known as the government. I am not trying to talk about politics here, I'm talking about people. Living in this day and age, we have a a lot of source of news and knowledge around such as the radio, television, internet, books, and so on.

Also note that not everyone in the world put out news because it's true. Some wicked minded people in the world use these kind of media to trick them. believers are the kind of people who believes these kinds of thing. The usual trait to these believers is that whatever makes sense to them, or sometimes even whatever that is so complicated (or sound complicated to them) and due to the attitude of "wow these things are so complicated it must be true" they end up as the believers. Believers also most of the time don't have a clue in what they believe in and on some instances even made up stories about the thing that they believe in due to the ignorance of themselves. Doesn't mean that everything that the believers believe is wrong but rather what they believe in is not given much thought into.

Rebels

These are the kinds of people that are the opposite of the believers and usually have a very aggressive and hasty kind of mind. They tend to just repel whatever news or knowledge that is just not to their liking. A part of the rebels are also the people who just like to see something successful to plunder. The rebels usually despise what is believed by many people just because they want to. Not to say that all rebels are wrong, but rebels usually spear without a true purpose. Just like the believers, what they have in common is they don't have a clear idea of their goals and does it for the fun of it. And because of the personal loathe towards what is believed, fictional news and knowledge are also made up to make themselves feel more secure and a sense of accuracy into what they're rebelling against.

Thinkers

Thinkers are people who don't just gobble in what they heard or instantly reject what is known. Their reaction is based on proper thinking and rational reasoning. Right of the bat, the news or knowledge that is fed to them is analyzed and proven its truth. Thinkers are the people the world is lacking today. A kind of person that thinks about everything, constantly, relying on reliable sources and later deriving their own net of understanding on a given subject. Problem is its not easy being a thinker. You cannot force yourself to be a thinker, you have to train yourself to think and make it a habit to constantly look for the logic and maybe even make rough predictions of what to expect. Thinkers lead a more organic life. They live on what they personally believe and what they personally rebel. They don't follow people, they lead. They are made up of leader material. But sadly they aren't many of them today. They are the optimum person. If we have a goal of change that we need to have, it'll be to be a thinker.

Hook ups vs. Relationships

Now before I proceed, I have to be honest that I do have a couple of reviews for movie that I haven't done but God knows I am so lazy to type them. The movies are Gamer featuring Gerard Butler and a local film, Papadom featuring Afdlin Shauki. Long review short, Gamer sucks, 5/10 and Papadom is pretty good, 8.5/10. Now, onto the pressing matters.

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Before continuing to read on this post of mind, keep in mind that these are merely an opinion and you are open to an intellectual argument with me on the mentioned topic. Also keep in mind that I have nothing against one or the other since nowadays it seems that it's all a matter of choice and preference.

Hook ups
Hook ups are when you agree to be in relationship with each other, but it's in a trial period. Just like a lot of shareware out there where you are given a specific amount of time to try it out, extend the trial period if you did something in particular but all in all, will expire within a certain amount of time. People get involved in hook ups because they can skip one major feature of a relationship; devotion. While in hook ups, they're allowed to date other people and they are not limited to spend time specifically garnering the temporary relationship. Hook ups also give reason for both sides to have reasons to end it early say if a problem appears. It seems to be a very popular choice among youths nowadays since devotion is a very heavy thing to handle and needs a lot of time to have it. Hook ups also allow these people to be able to experience a lot of different people and the multiple hook ups that they have gives them the upper hand of knowing what various problem that can occur once they seriously want to start being in a relationship.
This culture is practiced widely in the western world and is now catching up quickly with easterners. Hook ups are also practiced mainly by youths since they say that they have a long life ahead of them and want to utilize the time to try hook ups and experience multiple person while they still have the time.

Relationships
Relationships are long, devotion-driven connection between 2 people that will stay that way until marriage or death do them apart. People in relationships are stuck with the person of their choice for the rest of their romantic lives. Relationships don't have an expiry date and it is usually bound by a promise to stay with each other. Relationships are the less popular choice of today's youth since devotion is a difficult thing to practice and also they don't have the chance to be with any other person anymore. Any free time for both of them will usually be utilized with bonding and ways to strengthen their connection. Relationships are less popular too because the major arguments and disagreements usually happens in relationships and they have no choice but to look for solution(s) regardless of the difficulty of the situation. Relationships obviously are much, much harder to maintain and having to put up with the same person everyday is a tasking thing. The plus side of it however, in relationships, love exists and with much effort the love will be more than you can handle, which is a good thing by the way. There will be also time where anniversary celebration is held and to achieve that milestone and feel a kind of happiness that is truly a gift from God. In relationships, you too will have a much better idea and perception of the person. In simpler words, relationships are something you go into because you love a single person and want to improve everything together.

If you ask me,
I would prefer a relationship over hook up on any given day. Yes it's difficult, yes it requires a lot of patience, yes it require a lot of guts, but the satisfaction and the feeling of happiness and security that result from it is far more beneficial and leaves a greater and longer term impact to your life. True, I'm 19 and might still be too young for it but to me it is best for us to learn when were young instead of using the free time to experiment. And I never know how long is my future, so I don't want to waste it experimenting. It's not exciting compared to hook ups, I know, but the rewarding feeling that came from it is worth all the effort.

Don't make a promise you can't keep.

Stop being rebellious all the time

If you are to spend your life rebelling, when are you going to fail and learn life as it is?

We are humans. We are not perfect. So wasting time trying to be perfect is just not human.

We are humans. We should learn to fail sometimes.

Is the 360 holding the PS3 back?

When games like Uncharted 2: Among Thieves come along, you have to question why so few games push the boundaries of the PlayStation 3 so far. With 360 versions of multi-format titles regularly inching out their PS3 counterparts, are developers justified in blaming Sony’s tools for their troubles, or is it just a symptom of curtailing coding to work on the 360’s older architecture?

Look at the screenshots of Uncharted 2 we’ve taken. Look at the amount of detail in each. Look at how sharp the textures are, and how good the lighting is. Amazing, isn’t it? And there’s a lot more that these screenshots can’t show, like the animation and Uncharted 2’s physics – which are both excellent. It is the best showcase of what the PS3 hardware can do, when given the chance. And While Naughty Dog must be given a lot of the credit for this, it’s also hard not to look at Uncharted 2 as proof that the 360 is now holding the PS3 back.

Look at the recent multiformat releases and compare them to Uncharted 2 – big difference, right? This isn’t surprising. The PS3 has a hard drive and it has a Blu-ray drive, two things the 360 doesn’t have as standard. The hardware itself is also more recent. As Naughty Dog co-president Evan Wells confirmed in a recent interview, these things were instrumental in making Uncharted 2 the game it is:

"We’re fortunate that we get to work on a system that has a hard drive and uses Blu-ray for storage. Without these things, Uncharted 2 would have been a very different game. What we were able to do with the Cell processor allowed us to achieve a density of polygons and a fidelity to our effects that would simply not be possible without it.”"

Wells adds that had Naughty Dog not had the talented staff it does “we wouldn’t have been able to take advantage of the hardware and achieve the results that we did”. But the hardware issue can’t be ignored, and leads you to wonder how many multiplatform titles have suffered because of the 360’s spec. Modern Warfare 2 is a good example. Would we now be looking forward to a MW2 that renders in 1280x720 or even 1920x1080 now – and not 1200x600 – if the 360 was better equipped? Infinity Ward is one of the world’s leading developers, so it’s not a question of ability. Therefore, you have to look at the hardware involved.

This theory is supported by some recent 360 exclusives. ODST is a reminder that Bungie has been unable to make a 360 game engine that can do respectable levels of detail and ‘proper’ HD visuals. And then there’s Forza 3:

"Yeah, it’s pretty special. When you see it running for the first time, the detail and smoothness of it all is quite something. It’s such a step up from previous 360 racers. You just can’t believe that Turn 10’s been able to drag that kind of performance out of a four-year-old console.” "

This is what a journalist who has reviewed the game for a UK 360 magazine told us. And he’s right in the sense that it does things with the 360 hardware that should be impossible. And perhaps they are. Disappearing roads and other glitches are an example of this. And the extra content disc is proof that the DVDs used by the 360 are no longer up to the job.

But because the 360 is every bit as popular as the PS3, third party developers are still required to ensure their multiformat games work just as well on an Arcade spec 360 as they do the PS3. This means that although the PS3 has Blu-ray and a hard drive as standard, most multiformat games released for it will struggle to take advantage of the additional storage and hard drive caching these features offer – especially when the 360 version has been the lead version.

This won’t stop such games being good games. But whenever a developer like Naughty Dog gives you a glimpse of what the PS3 is truly capable of, you can’t help by wonder how much better third party games could be, were it not for the 360.

Article extracted from www.gameswire.net

[http://www.gameswire.net/news/opinion-is-the-360-holding-the-ps3-back_422.html]

My history of Social Networking

As a kid, the internet was a very strange thing for me. For some reason, after entering some keywords into the address bar, I was able to go to site filled with things of my interest anytime and know any kind of information I wanted. Awesome stuff. I was exposed to the internet as early as 6 years old. Later in my life I was just using the internet to get information on all sorts of things and that's that.



As I get older, When I was in my Form 3 to be exact, I heard of a little thing called Friendster. It is a website that allows you to have your own profile and connect with your friends. Back then, I really don't see what's so fun about it but since it was a fad at that time, I registered myself an account anyway. After a while using it, it was getting kind of fun for some reason. I don't have anything specific that I do there but I just find it fun to be there. Sharing pictures with people, writing testimonials about friends; maybe those are the things that I find joy in doing.



Then came along another new and more deep social networking site known as MySpace. It was getting a lot of attention since it gives you the ability to fiddle around with the HTML and CSS of your profile, which means (for advanced user at that time) you can make you profile look anyway you like. One thing that doesn't attact me to use it at the time is because of the complexity of it. On Friendster, there are very little things I have to manage, such as pictures, friend requests and the occasional testimonials. But here there are many other things to manage such as music, videos and other multimedia things. As I grow older and getting more proficient in HTML, I registered myself a MySpace account. I found joy in making my site as flashy as possible and adding as much people as I can into my friends list; regardless whether I know them in real life or not. Commenting on other people's profile was a blast and fiddling with the elements of my profile was a lot of fun too. I had a lot of things to do and the depth of this social networking site, paired with the (kind of) large friends list that I have, it was something to be proud of back then. And I've also met a lot of interesting people that end up being my good friends up to this day.


Then, came along yet another new social networking site, Facebook. Not many of my friends are there so earlier I just stick to MySpace. Thinking that this thing might be a new fad, I registered myself an account there and just leave it. You know, in case if MySpace became outdated, I already have an account there. As I grow older, MySpace gets kinda boring to me. More and more of my friends are getting on Facebook and so what is the purpose of social networking of you don't have any social to network with. After trying on Facebook for a while, I got hooked on it. It was far more simple, neat, and manageable. It was also very presentable and the profile of other people are much more accessible and systematic. I also liked how it gives us the ability to comment on anything that the person has done; befriend with another person, liked something, changed status and much more. And as I grow older too, MySpace becomes so obnoxious to me with all of its sparkly, blinky, seizure-inducing profiles. Thus, I moved onto Facebook and kept using it until now.


I also have a twitter account. I used it kind of late because to me, it's like another way for people to be able to stalk on you, but then when I think about, who wants to stalk on me anyway. Plus I intend to only update on things that are not really significant. It's a new kind of social networking so it doesn't compare to 3 of the earlier ones.

I think I'm not the only one with this kind of experience though. And I'm still thankful that I had registered on all of those social networking sites. Although the 2 earlier ones are now a pain in the neck for me, I still have them standing, on the brink of deletion of course. They have thought me a few things that I treasure up till today.

• Friendster - early exposure to social networking, picture sharing with friends
• MySpace - thought me HTML, thought me to befriend strangers, a site where comments are the currency of your profile
• Facebook - neat, easy and accessible social networking although with a lot of application notification spam that gets on your nerves

I have nothing against any of the social networking sites if you have to know. Those were the times.

I'm only active on Facebook and Twitter now. Feel free to be my friend on Facebook but I only accept requests from people I know in real life. As for twitter, you are free to follow whoever you are.

FB - Rayza Ridzuan
Twitter - rayza_ridzuan

Compensating for lost times

Ok

I know it's been a long while since I've added a new post. If you think I was being lazy, well, that's because I am. I have a new problem now; the inability to do anything productive. Haha. Anyways, I saw 2 movies while my blog was in vacation, therefore I will review those movies as brief as I can. Sorry to keep you waiting. Well a handful of you anyway. People don't read my blog.

Hello? Hello....?? Echo.. echo.. echo.. echo..

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Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince

To cut to the chase, I don't really find this movie as engaging as the previous movies. Keep in mind that I didn't read the novel so throughout this movie I was struggling to relate and figure out what am I really looking at. The actors were tremendous don't get me wrong and the post effects were top notch. It's just because I didn't read the book. The previous movies were lighter but because Harry's getting older and so does everyone else, the story gets heavier and a lot more people kept dying. Not a bad movie for the readers I guess, but for the non-readers, I guess you'll be in the same boat as I am, dazed, confused and wondering. Owh the movie was almost 3 hours too. So, go to toilet and empty your bladder and bowels before hand ;-)

For me, it's just a 6/10

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The Proposal

Ryan Reynolds, gotta love him. He plays Deadpool in the recent X-Men movie and he have a great sense of humor too. I loved the movie, so much that I went to watch it twice. The movie was intellectually funny and it was very interesting to watch the progress between these two unlikely couple. The movie was not over 2 hours and is just nice for people with weak bladder such as yours truly. A great romance/comedy movie.

The odd couple gets 9/10 from me

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Those are the two movies that I've saw before this. Sorry for the short reviews. I will do full fledged reviews after this. And non-review blogs are also coming. Maybe later. Right now I'm pretty busy with my games. Wow, Rayza you're a student, you should be studying. Ouch. I know.

Later peeps.

Public Enemies Review

This was an unplanned movie experience. I was actually going to college to get the results for my previous semester but thanks to the effectiveness of the college, we had to wait for the schedule to be released after lunch which is after 2pm. I got at the college around 11.30am so after taking my results and registering for my next semester (which is Pre-Degree finally!), I still have a lot of time to kill. Luckily I was with a few of my friends. Went to a restaurant and had lunch there and went into the hostel area to hang out with some other friends while waiting for after lunch. There, one of my friend invited us to go watch this movie so lacking of a better thing to do anyway later this day, we agreed. After taking my schedule at 2 something and taking my cheque at 3.30pm, we head for KL. There were 6 0f us including me, going by 3 cars with 2 peeps in each. Parked the car at Berjaya Times Square and then walking to Pavilion for the movie. Since I bought the ticket late, I had to sit on the third row from the screen with Anas. Bought a large popcorn & a couple of soft drinks since we were starving anyway.

The story is about John Dilinger, played by Johnny Depp who is a head honcho of a notorious bank robbing crew who are John Hamilton, Baby Face Nelson, just to name a few. There are very good at what they are doing and they will only rob the bank's money and put away the customers' money. But of course no crime is without it's fighter. With the rise of crimes in the 1920's pf Chicago, a talented police is extracted on the case for Dilinger named Melvin Purvis, played by Christian Bale. Earlier through the movie, Dilinger has also a love interest in a girl in which I don't remember her name in the film nor her name in real life. But she's a big part in the film. Through the course of the film, we see Purvis and his Investigation Bureau chase down Dilinger who is very hard to locate due to his strong influence around his company. I was told that it was based on a true story, and that this particular John Dilinger is the reason why there is FBI today.

I'll tell you earlier, this movie is not for people with ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder - the disability to concentrate on something for an extended amount of time) since it is full of story and it is 2 hours and 15 minutes. Yes I know movies nowadays are mostly around 2 hours. Nothing in this movie is improbable as it was based on true story anyway. Therefore for people who's looking for some fabulous hollywood post-effects won't find it here. It's pure movie all the way. The first half of the movie is honestly pretty slow and I admit I am struggling to try to understand what is happening. It's the second half where the first half of the movie really make sense and things becomes interesting. As the law enforcers gets closer to Dilinger the drama heats up and becomes more personal on both side of the party. Gangster life has never been portrayed like this before -- well not this proper at least. And to my favourite part of the movie, the gunfights. They are nothing like you've ever seen in a movie before. If you think you know how a gunfight looks like well watch this movie and get it redefined. They were nothing short of astonishing. it really steals the show. Both sides weren't just spraying bullets as it was absolutely free of charge but rather with a very realistic kind of gunfight. The gun sounds were loud, which is how they supposed to be. And usually during these firearms engagements, there are no background music to give the fake environment. It is pure environmental ambiance in the background. It's the movie with one of the best gunfights I've ever seen anywhere. Every single shot fired in this movie has one thing in which I don't see in many movies, existence. In most movie, they put more attention onto the quantity of shots fired, but in this movie, it's quality, and sometimes both. Johnny Depp was great, Christian Bale too. Great actors as they are. Keep in mind though this movie is not for everyone. It's not the normal action flick you see out there. This is not an action film, it's a gangster drama. And I kinda like it.

Gunshots still ringing in my head, 7.5/10.

One Sentence Opinion

Out of thinking too much, I've thought of giving out one sentence opinion of the things surrounding our lives. Might update if I feel like it.

Religion - guidance
Knowledge - drive
Mind - gift
Money - necessity
Social - companion
Men - perpendicular
Women - complicated
Courage - boost
Time - medium
Food - fuel
Rain - forgiveness
Heat - torment
Hatred - weakness
Love - madness
Hugs - embrace
Kiss - exclusive
Lies - diversion
Truth - reality
Hypocrisy - cowardliness
Drama - unnecessary
Life - redemption

Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen Review

Just for the record, at the date of writing, I've already saw this movie twice. Initially at the Berjaya Times Square and the next at KLCC. My review will be based on my first experience since the second time I saw it, I fell asleep for 10 minutes not because the movie was boring but because I had a long and exhausting day before.

This movie was waited by everyone. Waited so much that the GSC website that offers earlier bookings crashed that they had to divert it to another simplified site for reservations. Even then you will be lucky to be able to book anything before midnight. Holding to that fact, I've decided to book the one on the 10th floor of the Berjaya Times Square. Thank goodness there were still an ample amount of seats available. Probably because not many people know about the place. It is actually a better experience there compared to the conventional cinema because the screens are bigger and all the seats hand rest are retractable. The sounds were also blasting loud but the right kind of loud. Bought the ticket one day earlier. I got a nice view of the movie. Unfortunately I came in about 10 minutes late. So I missed the opening but I could only hope that I didn't miss out much. Since I was kind of thirsty, though I had breakfast at Old Town White Coffee Cafe at Pavilion, I bought a large Coke. The place is big so it is a while before I reach my seat.

The movie, from the beginning should be concluded with one word, colossal. Right from the beginning you could see them getting the bad guys with no excuse to the environment around them, blowing up with anything that is possible to be blown up. The movie is mainly about the hunt for the last shard of the Allspark and the Decepticon's attempt to revive the ancient Prime that went rogue in search of Energon (power source), The Fallen. The quest was littered with battles among them in the most flexible battle I've seen between hundreds of tons of metal. It is kinda hard for me to follow to since most of the Decepticons have very dull colours compared to the Autobots. All the Transformers stay true to the first movie except for Megatron (and another one in which I will not enclose here) in which as we seen in the first movie was terribly damaged, in which he got his spare parts from another Decepticon. This time he's a semi-tank-semi-jet but still pretty much the same. There were also a few goofy Transformers thrown in the movie to slow the movie down since when it is not slowing down, something is blowing up or metals are clashing. The Transformers were so big of a part of this movie that the rest of the human characters that are not Sam & Mikaela seems so puny. And should I say the designs of these Transformers were astonishing. Looking at made me wonder how long did it take to do all that. The details were just eye popping. If you really want to see what they did, it's either you see it at the movies a lot of times or wait for the High Definition version of it is sold to actually see it. There are also a lot of Transformers now and some in which is a lot bigger that the Transformes themselves. Always a sight to behold. There were also so many Transformes that it is not very easy to keep track of. Not that it's a bad thing, I'm just mentioning it.

Well, what more can I ask. Great action, incredible effects, long duration. Great. Just what the doctor ordered, a real action CG movie. Aside from the fact that there is one Decepticon that shifts into a human female that I do not agree as it is already been done by The Terminators, the rest were just beyond words. As a kid, most of us love Transformers, boys especially. Having to see them duke it out on the silver screen with over the top effects is just a dream come true. It's like a little kid walking into toy land. It's that kind of feeling that you get when you this movie. An incredibly tall recommendation from me for those who haven't seen it. Wonder what was all the craze about this movie? Well because it is good and people know it. If you haven't seen it, well you better be soon. Epic.

0.5 shy of a perfect score due to the cameo of a Terminator. [9.5/10]

Remembering birthdays

Today in a time where almost everyone has a social networking account, access of one's info has been anything but tasking. This includes birthdays. In social networking, often that the birthday of your friends are reminded to you up to a week earlier. Not necessarily a bad thing, at least the people who knew can think of something to say or maybe even something to give. For people who likes to receive birthday wishes (and presents) this is a welcomed feature as it gives the ease of informing her/his friends without having to tell them physically.

But aside from that, that will actually give the reason to not really remember the actual date of one's birthday. Just like the number of other people in your phone, if you don't have your phone, you wouldn't know the number of others unless you opt to memorize them or write them down somewhere else. Here is the age where even friends of friends can be able to know and wish someone on their friends list a happy birthday without having to memorize or even have met the actual person in real life. Although that sound great on paper, how about the thoughtfulness and the heart and genuine care that comes with the wish?

Once, before the boom of the social networking sites, birthdays are often remembered, therefore only friends, close peoples, or loved ones who really cares would remember the date of one's birthday. This way, we can really see actually gives two cents about us. We could really see if someone genuinely cares or if someone is merely trying to impress. Birth dates consists no more than a series of 6 digits placed together forming a specific date in a year with the year born indicating how old one will be on the given time. Having a lot of friends would mean it'll be difficult to remember them all but for that, it is excused. It's for the select few of the people that needed to be memorized their birth dates, for acquaintances or other usual friends, it is not a must to remember them but even if one do remember them, it wouldn't be much of a problem.

Having social networking helps in reminding one to others birthday unable us to actually know if someone's wish is purely based on his/her memory or whether on of check, therefore eliminating the hard work. Like I said, not necessarily a bad thing or maybe even something not necessary, but for something that comes once a year, the sincerity, love and care in a birthday wish is truly none of the quality it used to be.

Or maybe I'm just over-analyzing. Haha.

Night At The Museum 2 Review

Since I watched the first movie, I have always wanted to see more of this movie. And now it's out, and I went to watch it of course. I actually saw this movie last Monday (01/06) with my regular movie partner. It was the starting of the school holiday and as expected the line for the movie tickets were long and it's coiling. Having to be one step ahead, I've reserved some tickets, which require us not to queue at all, only for an additional RM 1. I haven't got my lunch and since it was just quarter past 2, we went to the nearest food court to have lunch. I had the Dory Fish Pasta at the western corner there and guess what, it was pretty good. The fish were succulent and the pasta was moist and flavorful. You should give it a try if you want a breath of fresh air of all of the usual chicken rice, hot plate, claypot, mixed rice affair of many food courts. Window shopped around the area to kill some more time before the movie starts at 4pm. Weird thing though the only kind of window shopping I enjoy are games, computers & gadgets. Hehe.

The movie starts with Tim Daly the (once) guard of the Museum of Natural History now off having his own career of inventing stuffs such as a glow in the dark torchlight. Long story short, some events made him required to present at the museum as the artifacts in the museum he used to work in recognizes him. Some artifacts needed to be moved to the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC, which is the new "playground" for Tim. He's not an official guard of the museum but as the story goes, it doesn't really matter. The Tablet of Akhmenrah, the artifact that brings the creatures to life after sunset was unintentionally moved to the Smithsonian which happened to be the largest museum in the world. With some of the artifacts from the Museum of Natural History meeting the Smithsonian artifact should produce some interesting meet ups, and that's pretty much what the rest of the movie is about. Artifacts with attitude.

Simply put it, it's just like the first movie. If you have saw the first one, this is a very similar movie with the difference only being the setting and the repertoire of living artifacts. If you liked the first movie at all and wanted for more, this movie should fix you up, but if you're looking for something fresh and innovative, you're not gonna find any in this. This movie is like a haunted train ride; the first time you get on it, all the scares worked and you did get scared for your money, and this movie is like taking the same ride, albeit a little more variation. This movie was very average for me, probably because I was expecting too much from it. Probably because there were so many characters that they want to feature, the focus of story-telling has really suffered from that. If you haven't watched the first one, don't be afraid to straight ahead and jump into this movie. Past knowledge from earlier movie will only give you some neat things to pick out but nothing crucial to the story. The jokes were average, best be watched with your closest peeps so that you can laugh along with it. This is probably because during the first movie, you really had no idea what was going to happen but in here everything were quite predictable. All and all, this movie is not to be taken seriously. If you have some time to kill with your friends and you really can't come up with anything ingenious to do, maybe you should watch this. For the peeps who've watched the first one, be prepared to ride the same ride again. Not a bad movie, just very average. For me.

This movie scores a low 7/10 for me.

How I believed in love at first sight

If you've read my review on the Star Trek movie, you would've known that I went to Pavilion last Saturday to watch the movie. After the movie ends and after my lunch, me and my movie partner is still strolling around Pavilion, which is as we know it, a place where no typical everyday man (or woman) could afford from or maybe only buy from once in a while. After our lunch, it seems that our wallet is empty. Yes even the food court that we ate at is somewhat more expensive than a typical food court that you would find in any other average shopping malls. Pavilion and The Gardens are the two of the luxurious shopping mall in the capital which I know. All I can afford here is window shopping (and some stuffs from shops that have branches) and the boutiques around here will have us laughing out of the store after looking at the price tag. Well, at least that's the case for me. Ok, I'm going far out of my context here. I'm going to tell you how I believed in first love. When we were going to EON Bank to draw some money from the ATM there, we had to go past by a parking bay (with valet service nonetheless) where I laid eyes on probably the most awesome creation the motor world has to offer...



And I was mesmerized. Mesmerized as if I've forgot everything I've ever had. Mesmerized like I never had been. It's an honor to lay eyes on such radiance, such sophistication, such contained wilderness... I never believed in first love, but this machine proved me wrong. Looking at it, I forgot to breathe for a while that my face turned pale, stunned by its resonating beauty. Under the spotlight of the bay, this machine shines it's beauty into the eyes of its looker. It is said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But this kind of beauty is universal, and the kind of beauty that language is not required. I was in disbelief. I lost to my own belief, my own stand of "love at first sight is not love". My stand was shattered but I am glad, because my love at first sight is this Italian tailored madness under an ivory armor;

Lamborghini Murcielago...
I bow down to your supremacy

Star Trek Review

Yes at first glance, even I thought this is not a good idea to watch Star Trek. I've watched Star Trek: Nemesis before (Google it). The movie was Boring with a capital B. I tried so hard to like it because Star Trek is a big franchise but I failed to and fell asleep almost halfway through. But that was Star Trek: Nemesis which was still in the original canon of Star Trek. This movie however is a reboot to the canon. Hollywood tries to make it accessible not only for nerds, but also normal people alike. And the movie reviews I saw all over the internet says it was unexpectedly good. This time around, I watched the movie with my regular movie companion at Pavilion in KL, just for a change. We've been to other places before. Our movie starts at 12.15pm. Had our breakfast at Oldtown White Coffee: Signature there and their toast are one of a kind. The price was reasonable too. You should try it once in a while instead of the normal fast food restaurant breakfast. Walked around the Pavilion a little before going to the cinema for the movie. And I must say the air-conditioning in GSC Cinemas has been less cold. Probably because there has been complaints. Anyway at least it's cozy.

Being someone who never saw or liked the actual movie, my hopes wasn't really high for this one. The movie starts with the U.S.S Kelvin, which is one of the mega-spaceships like the Millennium Falcon in Star Wars. It stumbled upon one of the Romulan (a race in the Star Trek universe) ships and it started attacking. The captain of each ship decided to make truce with the captain of the U.S.S Kelvin boarding the Romulan ship. George Kirk was appointed as the captain of the ship while the original captain went and board the Romulan ship. The U.S.S Kelvin lost and also does George Kirk but he got the chance to name his son, Jim Kirk. The story then proceeds about the story of Jim Kirk and also Spock, a half human half vulcan and their story in the institute and the U.S.S Enterprise.

I know this is weird for a Star Trek movie but everything is understandable. Yes. Everything is! Including all of the intergalactic warp space time travelling thingys. The movie was action-packed, sprinkled with some comedy and drama. In one word, it was Epic! This movie has changed my whole perception of the Star Trek universe and if they decided to make a sequel for this, I'll definitely watch it. The new actors are nothing short of amazing. Kirk with his rebellious nature, Spock with it's logical explanations, have them as a team and you got yourself one heck of a duo. Much like Starsky & Hutch but they're in space. A very very good movie. If someone invites me to watch it again, I might just accept it because it was really good. Nothing short of amazing. "Dif-tor heh smusma" (which is "live long and prosper" in vulcan).

This epic movie is worthy of a solid 9/10

X-Men Origins: Wolverine Review

As usual, my reviews are not usually up at the same day I watched it but better late than never. Saw this movie at Mid Valley (again! I know I'm getting bored myself) with a friend of mine. Saw the first show of the day. Had my breakfast first at the nearby McDonald's while waiting for the ticket counter to open. Oh I forgot to mention that I got at Mid Valley around 9.30am. I just like being early for no particular reason. Had some good ol' Big Breakfast. Did you know that Big Breakfast is the MOST unhealthy menu in McDonald's? Yikes. I can't eat them often. We had booked for it at the first place but since my partner has conveniently forgot to copy it and the line was still fairly short anyway (because it's still very early) we decided to just queue. The lines here move rather quickly despite of its length so I wasn't really complaining. Plus we save RM1 on the booking surcharge. Ehem. Got the tickets, killed some time by window shopping and entered the cinema 5 minutes before 11am. The theatre was only half full though. Or was it half empty? Hurm. You decide.

The movie started with the child life of Wolverine and his elder brother Sabretooth. Living in a family full of conflict he Wolverine eventually killed his real father after his real father shot his fake father. The claws coming out of his hands at first were made of his own bones and he used them to stab his pops. Starting from this moment on they lived as vagrants, trying to survive by using their best skills, killing. The opening montage shows that they have participated in various combats in history from the American Revolution until The Vietnam War and they haven't aged a bit. This is to show that these brothers are practically invulnerable and that they had a very long lifespan. This movie also feature some of the other heroes from the X-Men canon such as The Blob, Bolt, Deadpool, Gambit and some other early appearances from the juvenile X-Men heroes to be. The movie was action packed, the story was easy to understand, the plot was straight forward, and there was very little dull moments along the movie. I love watching the double katana wielding Wade Wilson or later Deadpool in action and I'm really interested to see more of him. Heard news that there is going to be X-Men Origins: Deadpool too but I don't know because I also heard about X-Men Origins: Magneto. So whichever comes out I'm still going to go watch it nonetheless. But he is probably my favourite character in the movie after Wolverine and just like Stryker said, "If it weren't for his mouth, he'd be the perfect soldier". And also Hugh Jackman is incredible as Wolverine and I really can't see anyone who can do it better. He has the charms and the looks. Very good lines and very convincing and quality acting. I was also very eager to see Gambit actually since this is the first time that he ever appeared on the big screen. Sadly there were very little scenes with him and few of which is key to the story. I want to see him fight more. Maybe against Deadpool. That'll be awesome. And as everybody knows, Wolverine has adamantium skeleton which are ores from outer space. And he has regenerative properties. He is just entertaining to watch because his fighting style is so different than most superheroes that evade from attacks, Wolverine just goes to it head on. Sheer excitement and a sight to behold. He's someone you'll never want to mess with I'll tell you that.

Overall, it was a great movie. Better than my expectations actually. I was thinking I aws going to see another comic book franchise going to milked and rehashed but certainly I was wrong. My partner loves it too, and this partner of mine don't like films easily. That's good I guess. At least this partner of mine is happy and thinks it's worth it. Well so do I. I give you high recommendations to go see it. It's an entertaining movie and whether you like X-Men or not, just give it a try. You might like it afterwards.

This movie deserves 9/10

He's Just Not That Into You Review

By the time of writing, I saw this movie yesterday (29/4) at Mid Valley with some of my friends. This movie has been out for a while now, about a month I guess. But only recently that I had a chance (and a group of friends that are willing to watch it). This day was a normal day with classes until afternoon but I headed for Mid Valley right after. The movie started 10 minutes after I arrived, and thanks to my friend who have bought it for me, I don't need to queue. Bought a small pop corn and a medium coke before heading in since I haven't got my lunch yet. According to the internet, the movie was 2 hours long. Probably that's the reason it took me a while to decide whether to watch this too long because I'm not a fan of sitting in a refrigerator for 2 hours. And since I'm kinda too thin, I get real cold real fast.

For those of you who didn't know, this movie was based on a 2005 self-help book of the same name by Greg Behrendt, Liz Tuccillo, and Lauren Monchik. Due to that, the movie was separated into 4 subtle parts if I'm not mistaken, started by the interview of some people on the topic. And this movie was star-studded. The idea of the movie came from Drew Barrymore herself after reading the book, and she stars in it as well as some hollywood hot shots which are Ben Affleck, Jennifer Anniston, Jennifer Connelly, Kevin Connolly, Bradley Cooper, Ginnifer Goodwin, Scarlett Johanson and Justin Long. That's a combination that comes once in a blue moon. The movie actually revolves around a few people which are connected indirectly. There's a desperate woman, a married couple with problems, and a happy couple with problems of getting married. This is mainly a chic flick but anybody that are even remotely interested in this movie from all fuss you heard about it should go and check it out. Especially those with relationship problems or not, or a woman who's having difficulties getting a men. This movie has a lot of messages for the ladies but mens, go watch it too and see what hollywood has to say about us. Characters in this movie was predictable again, but then again it's not easy to make it not. Convincing deliveries of the characters by the actors and actresses in this movie made it a worthwhile too

Overall, it was a great movie. There's nothing much I can say about it because there's nothing that you haven't seen but why fix something that is not broken anyway. Since the movie has been out for quite a while already, the showtimes for this movie is not much anyway. For those who haven't got a chance to watch it, go ahead do yourself a favour and go watch it. Higher recommendations from me to people that is going to be, still, and was in a relationship. This movie had messages so subtle that some people that might be in some situations might get influenced by this movie too. But hey its hollywood peeps. You do the judgement. Great movie. That's what I think. I don't think it's going to be shown any longer than another two weeks from now at most. Go ahead.

This movie gets 8/10 from me.

Dear Lulu

Dear Lulu,
You are very busy;
And sometimes also you are clumsy;
When it comes to food you are very choosy;
But I'm not complaining my little daisy;
Because that's just who you are my only lady.

Dear Lulu,
You are filled with passion;
And you always know all your action;
Currently you're chasing your ambition;
I hope I'm not slowing you down by any fraction;
Because I want to be your helpful companion.

Dear Lulu,
I love you;
What I can't get you is very few;
All the time I want to do things for you;
And although you told me myself would do;
What I did was just an extension for the word I love you.

Dear Lulu,
You love me;
You always find some time for me;
I lack so much but you told me let it be;
Although somethings look very hard to me;
You'll do it regardless because you love me.

Dear Lulu,
I wonder how are you;
I wonder how do you do;
I wonder if you miss me cause I miss you;
I wonder if you're happy with me cause I'm happy with you;
Eventhough I'm not the man of your dreams that's true;
Baby I'll try to be, for you.

Dear Lulu,
Now you're away at a place I can't say;
Where it's not possible for us to contact;
And although only for a while that you're away;
I can already feel the impact;
Because you mean so much to me;
Please come home I need you badly.

Dear Lulu,
I miss you.

Confessions of a Shopaholic Movie Review

I saw this movie at Mid Valley on the 19th of March. I was really lazy to put this up early for some reason. But better late then never. This movie has been out for a while by the time I saw it, I know, but it wasn't on my movie checklist anyway because none of them are currently viewing. The film had quite a promotion I see. It was also based on the book with the same name by the famous chic lit novelist, Sophie Kinsella. Many movies nowadays are adaptations of something, books, comics videogames, even anime & manga. Not many new ideas get through. Maybe it's because of the recession in which they were trying to play it safe by makinga movie that already had followers from the material it was based on therefore they know that it will be watched by some people no matter how bad the reviews are. Or maybe even if it wasn't adapted, the original movie was made a sequel. Playing it safe all the time. Even hollywood is not recession-proof.

Ok enough about my rants on the recession topic, going on to the movie. Since I had a friend that had read the whole Shopaholic books, I had this person to accompany me to watch it. We saw the first show of the day which was at 11.30am. The movie was 1 hour and 45 minutes. The movie was about Rebecca Bloomwood also known as Becky among her friends, who had an unhealthy obesession towards shopping (thus the name shopaholic) until one day she had her debts getting back to her. Up to a point that even a debt named Derek Smeath was chasing her around to get her to pay her debts. She was living with her friends who are getting married later. She came to New York to work as a journalist. Having her expertise in shopping, she applied for a spot in the infamous Allete magazine only to be turned down and later working on another magazine that was under the same publisher. She works in Succesful Savings magazine which is the complete opposite of what she's capable of doing. Here is also where she met her benevolent editor Luke Brandon. The story goes on as she's trying to learn to overcome her shopping habits and at the same time trying to avoid the debt collector. A chic flick that everyone can enjoy.

Now, having someone who has actually read the book to accompany me, this person told me that the movie was loosely based on the book. For example in this movie, Becky stumbled upon Brandon for the first time at a hot dog stand which he payed for Becky's hot dog, instead in the book, they met for the first time on a plane, where Becky exposed her unhealthy shopping habits to Brandon, which will be her future editor of Succesful Savings. But even when the movie was loosely based on it, and this person being a true follower of the series, this person still says the movie was pretty good, which was saying much since usually people who had read the book would detest againts changing so much from the original material. That was a good sign. Personally, I think movie makers had to change it because if they had to take everything, or a major part of the book onto the screen, it would be a very lengthy movie and it wasn't suitable for movie goers. This movie I think was made this way so that it was suitable for both the novel readers and the movie goers. The movie goers had another chic flick and the novel readers get a rough idea of what Rebecca Bloomwood is in real life. No clever twist whatsoever in this film but that was ok and not necessary. The film was pretty ok. I don't really watch chic flicks but this movie made me think twice if I should shun the genre upon view. It was pretty good for a chic flick. Everything is in order and nothing is not understandable. The comedy was ok too. You should go see it if you haven't.

I give this movie an 8/10

Fast and Furious 4 Review

As you see, this movie is in my list of movies to watch this year, so naturally I have expectations towards it. Planned to go watch this with my friends or something similar but since my mom got a hold of some free tickets (don't ask), of course I grabbed it. There's not many free things that I refuse. Who does?

Anyway, the movie was going to be in Mid Valley, on a Saturday (11/04/08). Coincidentally, I have class going on earlier that morning. So no choice, I had to attend it. The class ended about 30 minutes earlier and thanks to a friend of mine, I got sent to the nearest Komuter station without having to take a taxi. He saved me RM10. Thanks dude. The movie was a 4pm but I arrived in Mid Valley at about 11.30am. There are a lot of things I can do here of course to kill time. Had my lunch at McD's having the McValue Lunch of Double Cheeseburger. Walked around the mall, stopped by computer shops, stopped by MPH, before my mom called me to join the family for a meal before the movie. Guess what my mom got me? A McValue Lunch of Double Cheeseburger of course. My body must've been screaming like crazy if it could with the amount of fat and sugar I take in today. As you know, the movie is 18+ so my mom only got 2 tickets for this movie in which I had to watch it with my dad while the rest of the family get to watch Confessions of a Shopaholic. My movie starts at 4pm while the other one starts half an hour later. Got into the theatre and it was freezing cold. After the Transformers 2 movie trailer which was an eye candy and some booze commercials, the movie starts.

The movie starts and one of the company that works in this movie is Dreamworks, which specializes in digital special effects, which made me think, oh boy this isn't good. They're relying on some animated cars rather than the real ones. Unlike the earlier 3 movies to this series which starts with a race, this movie doesn't. This could be wrong or might be right. It's good to see Vin Diesel reprising his role as Dominic Toretto but Paul Walker hasn't yet to be seen. As in the trailer, it starts with stealing some oils and at the end of this scene was some obvious digital effects. Which was very cheesy and corny. Paul Walker appears later as the Brian O'Conner which is now working with the feds again. The movie mainly revolves around revenge that Dom was seeking to people who murdered her girl, Letty. And Brian was looking to bust the head honco of a drug smuggling gang. And coincidentally for both of the characters to reach their goals, they had to do some driving. Yeah nothing innovative but nothing wrong with that. Ok, now. What is it that made us so attracted to watch this movie franchise? Of course for the hot cars and racing action. Well, here's some spoiler for you, triple click in the white space to view it:
[Spoiler start]
there are only 2 races if I'm not mistaken throughout the whole movie and the rest of car scenes were just driving dangerously.
[End of spoiler]
There were only a handful of cars and even they don't appear much and even if they do only for a brief amount of time. This was not the Fast and Furious we have learned to like. Driving in this movie was just something that the characters had to do instead of what they like to do. Unlike in the first movie where there were drag races, races around the town in the second movie, races around a construction site in the third, all of which was done entirely by the protagonist's will purely for some good time. In this movie, such driving scene doesn't exist. It was either driving for someone or something. And there were also quite a number of death in this movie too, some which are very intense, which is not very fast & furios, which only have some deaths. This movie was more about a drama of revenge and gang busting starring Vin Diesel and Paul Walker with some hot cars in it. I don't think it deserves to be called the 4th movie because this one has so much less than what I expected because it's losing it's fast and furious factor. There are too little cars and too many dramas for a Fast & Furios movie. Still can't believe what I said? Go watch all of the previous 3 movies and then watch this one. Be honest with yourself. Newer doesn't automatically makes it better. I would say this as the worse entry of the franchise so far and if you have saw the first 3 movies, go watch it if you want to see a story progress. For newcomers to the movie, I suggest you watch any of the first 3 movies. And for movie goers and that doesn't have a problem with watching anything in the cinema, I think there could be other movies but you could still watch it if you're curious. For me personally though, I was kind of a let down. It wasn't a bad movie but it was ok. Just ok. There might be a sequel but I don't know.

I give it 6.5/10

What will you do?

If you feel like you're the one who's causing problems among other people and that things were perfectly fine until you came along?

My Driving Lesson: Part 5

This will be the last entry for this episodic content. If you're interested to follow my story from the very first day, use the keyword "jpj" to look for these kinds of posts. Now, on the the post.

Again, I had to skip class for the second time this week in order to attend the test. I've submitted my special leave letter to the respective lecturers but aside from attendance, I'm also missing out on my studies. No choice. I went home on the Tuesday afternoon, but stopped by Nilai for a while to take care of some business. After all that's done, I head home using the "oh-so-efficient-and-always-arrive-on-time" KTM Komuter. I unintentionally slept in the train while sitting in a vacant train coach. Probably I was too tired from the usual headache and an uncounted for flu. Woke up a station before Kajang (UKM). I didn't remember when I doze off though. Fetched by my mom. Settled everything there is to settle, grabbed a comic, read it in my room and went to sleep.

On the Wednesday of my test, I woke up 5 minutes late. But I still took my time knowing that today is going to be a very long day with a lot of waiting. Ate breakfast and went to the centre. There was a large number of crowd there which means only 1 thing; longer wait times. So there was 3 colours (each representing a group). White for repeats, yellow and green for first timers, with the only difference is yellow is limited to 60 person. The green bunch that day was 122 person. That sucks. I hate waiting. There's a Malay saying that goes,"waiting is a torture" in which I agree wholeheartedly.

My first test was part 2, which are the hills, parks and turns. I was kinda nervous for the hill as out of all the 3 things, hills were where I failed the most. My wait wasn't very long for this. Got a car with a damaged gearbox since it produces this weird shifting sound no matter how hard I press on the clutch. And the gears itself wobble at its place. Meh. What can I do anyway. With the holy "Bismillah" coming out of my mouth, I stepped on the clutch, changed to the 1st gear and lowered the handbrakes... slowly, I lift my left foot from the clutch... the car moves and by the time the car was stable enough, I tip toed the accelerator, the car moves up the hill, my heart pulsate faster, by the time before the sidemirror is alligned with the poles, I hit the brakes, leaned outside the window to see the front wheels are perfectly in the yellow area. 1 thing is done. Now to the difficult part. After raising my hand to indicate to the JPJ Instructor that I'm done there, I repeat the process of moving, and the car moved forward without a little reversing. Thank God!! Passed the difficult part. Now the rest should be a cakewalk. Did the other 2 things well. Haha that's a little dramatic story-telling from me.


Now on to the part 3, on road. All of the peeps from group yellow and green were waiting for their turn around if I'm not mistaken 8 cars. That is 60 yellow + 122 green = 182 peeps with average of 10 minutes each = 182 peeps x 10 minutes = 1820 minutes required divided with 8 cars so 1820/8 = 227.5 minutes + around 30 minutes of the JPJ officers lunch break which now brings us to a total of approximately 257.5 minutes which is roughly 4.3 hours of maximum waiting time for your turn. And this isn't Alaska people, Malaysia is a tropical country that is very generous (sometimes too generous) with their sunshines. I was one of the last dozen people. Which sucks. I doze off multiple times because I was so freaking tired and bored of waiting. If only I had a PSP at that moment. Not to mention also thirsty, but because I'm afraid that my number is called when I went to the canteen to get a drink, I didn't buy anything. The numbers were called out randomly too. If it was called in some sort of order, at least I can do a little bit of timing to do something else to kill my boredom. So when there was very few people left there, finally my number was called out, but I still have to wait for the instructor to test another guy first.


I had Jalan 1 for my test, which is the one going near the school. Aside from a few law breaking citizens of Malaysia, there wasn't a problem. When I got back to the centre, guess what? More waiting! Yay!! If I subtract all of the waiting that I have to do, I think it'll take up no more than half an hour. So right now I had to wait for my blue card from the instructor who hasn't gave it to the person in charge of redistributing all of the cards to be kept by the driving school branch because he doesn't like to come out of his car very much so he keep a number of them before giving it back. Which made me unnecessarily wait. What an uneffective protocol.

Whatever it is, I passed them all. I got my license. My real P license I will receive this Saturday so I would only be driving by then. Which I thinki I would. Anybody want to volunteer? Hehe.

My Driving Lesson: Part 4

This event happened on a Monday of no particular holiday, which means I had to skip classes no choice. Why I did so? Well, my driving school here only has JPJ tests on Wednesday. And prior to the test day, they provide you with a final lesson before the actual test day which will determine whether you fail or pass. I think a lot of other driving school does this but which one I do not know.

So, because I had to skip class for Monday of March 23 and Wednesday of March 25, I've written a special leave letter to my lecturers pledging that my attendence will be registered as absent with reasons instead of just absent. At the time of writing I haven't submitted the letter but I have attained the initials from the driving school to prove that I really do have lessons on that day. I was planning to leave college for home at 8 in the morning because of my intelligence of not resetting the clock after the Subuh prayers, I woke up by myself at quarter before 10. The lesson starts at 1pm actually but the reason I wanted to get home early is so that I can do my laundry earlier and have some time to relax thus not rushing for the lesson. Now because I'm late, I can't really take my time doing things. As soon as I arrive in my neighbourhood, I walked straight to the driving centre branch to get their initials. Got home, warmed up my lunch, get my laundry done, had lunch, had dessert (a slice of Choc Indulgence which happen to be in the fridge) and right after I finish hanging my laundry, the instructor came.

My usual instructor can't make it today, so I had a lady instructor. I don't want a lady instructor. Not that I like men, I just wanted my first driving experience with a lady is not with an instructor. Maybe someone special. Hehe. Well I'm being honest la kan ape salahnye. And the usual cycle of the part 1 technical driving and part 2 on road repeats. Nothing really interesting today. I had less engine stalls. Getting pretty confident now. The only problem today was it was blazing hot. I could barely stand it. Added with the fact I cannot switch on the air-conditioner during technical driving to stabilize the engine didn't make it easier. 3 hours of training today. Drove home.

My real JPJ test will be on this coming Wednesday (March 25). Again I would have to skip class and from what I've heard, I'll have to wait for my turn to take the test. Urgh. I don't like waiting. But most importantly, I have to pass and get my license. Wish me luck.

I wish THIS is my first car...

Watchmen Movie Review

Actually I have watched this movie back on Friday the 13th of this month but it is only now that I have the mood to finally write this down. It's been a while since the last entry. Here is my review.

Prior to watching this movie, I have been trying to catch up with the graphic novel which consists of 12 issue of graphic goodness by Alan Moore. It is one of the most celebrated comic book of all times and the only comic book to have made it in the Times Magazine 100 Best Book of All Time. Sadly I have only read up to book 4 to the day of the movie. I went with someone else to Seremban's Terminal 1. The movie was 6pm and my last class was supposed to end at 4.30pm. Luckily my class ends at 4pm and I called a right away which arrived around 15 minutes after which is still late considering I have a train to catch which is usually also late and someone to meet to tag along which will also cost valuable time. Thankfully by the time I got on the train, so does someone arrive at the station. By the time we got to Seremban, it was already 5.40pm. Got to the cinema, bought our ticket, and we had 10 minutes to spare. As usual I buy some popcorn and coke. The movie started as soon as we got the seat. Well, what can I say, one of my most anticipated movie of this year. And just like in the book, The Comedian gets murdered initially, which the story revolves around who did it. Watchmen are a group of people in costumes that controls the peace of New York City having that it had no police. The story is about the second generation of Watchmens which the first generation is known as the Minutemen. Some of the the Watchmens are continuation from the previous Minutemen bearing the the initials "II" which is two in roman characters in thier name. The rest of story is very complicated yet very rewarding if you really get a hold of it. I recommend you to read the book first before watching the movie as it will leave you jaw dropping to the floor with how much similarity it had with the book. Even if you haven't read the book, just go see it for a great cinema experience. The story unfolds very neatly and sticks very nearly to the book. Almost everything about the book is portrayed in this movie except for some smaller scenes and the ending of the movie was changed too but that just gives you the reason to experience both the book and the movie. All and all, I really have nothing to say about the movie aside that although it was 2 hours and 30 minutes long, there wasn't a single dull moment. The highest recommendation for this movie from me. If you have the time, go see it. Don't think twice.

Keep in mind that the comic book was more than a decade ago and it was told by many comic experts as a comic that is impossible to be filmed. Zack Snyder hit the homerun. Also thanks to David Hayter (voice of Solid Snake!!!) and another guy for making this movie on the dot. And just for fun, I want to show you some similarities from the comic to the screen. And these are just from the final trailer, not the whole movie. The movie is like a Deja Vu if you've read the comic. But a good Deja Vu of course.


For more small details and similarity of the movie go to the official website of the studio here or some other guy's research here.


Oh for the rating, I'll give it a full 10/10.