Archive for the ‘MISC. RAMBLINGS’ Category
January 21, 2011 – 3:07 pm
So here I am, sick at home due to acute food poisoning. Feels like shit, lemme tell ya, but at least 3 days of bed rest has given me motivation to update. What? So I was lazy the last coupla months, years, whatever…
Anyway, last night I saw Part 1 of Red Cliff. It was an excellent movie, but above that it starred Vicki Zhao in the role of the tomboy princess Sun. I was quite surprised. Vicki hadn’t crossed my mind for ages. I first saw her in So Close, that Hong Kong flick by Cory Yuen starring Shu Qi and Karen Mok. It wasn’t a very good movie, but Vicki captivated me then with her performance as a sort of tomboyish adolescent hacker-turned-assassin with crush on the cop hunting her down.
After that, I saw Shaolin Soccer, and while I didn’t recognize her as first I finally realized who it was by the end of the movie, and that was yet another big surprise. Since then, Vicki Zhao has sat on my fascination list, not just because I really like her unconventional cute looks, but also because she exudes a charisma that is subtle yet addictive.
There’s just something about how she can pull off depth in her characters. I just watched about half of So Close again, and I found myself impressed beyond my memories. Even in Cantonese, dubbed, Vicki’s portrayal stands out. In a genre where most film roles tend to be one-dimensional, Vicki alternates so realistically between playful and driven that she outshines even Karen Mok, definitely an excellent veteran actress. What a wonderful find, that Vicki has, probably of her own initiative, created a character far more interesting than what the original writers intended. (God knows, this movie was not an exercise in depth.)
In Red Cliff, she is once again a spunky tomboyish girl, and when I first saw her, I thought she was rather narrow in her roles. But after going back to So Close, I realize that it’s two very different characters and very different portrayals.
Well, when all is said and done, after my spontaneous Vicki revival, I dunno if I would actually go back and watch any of her other movies. I just like her character in So Close waaaay too much :P But then again, in respect of her skills, maybe I should.
This post had no point except to non-fangirlishly squeal about how freakin’ awesome Vicki Zhao was in So Close. So there.
EDIT: I just reached the car park fight scene with Shu Qi and Karen Mok. I had forgotten how ridiculously awesome this movie this.
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July 25, 2010 – 12:40 am
Just saw The Runaways. It didn’t get very good reviews, but I found it emotionally moving. Something about the story of these girls who rode the wild tornado of fame struck a chord inside. The highs and the lows, it was rock ‘n’ roll.
I was also really impressed with Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning. I didn’t know anything about Joan Jett or The Runaways. I only know Joan Jett’s classic songs, which I loved when I was a kid. So I can’t comment on how true they were, but they seemed pretty dang genuine to me. These actresses are so young, and yet they can portray all this, the strange freedom and suffocating, things that go right beyond your wildest dreams, and falling so far down, the 70s… Yeah, they did have that spirit.
It was a good movie. Not the best, but it gave me a complex churn of emotions, and that’s pretty good, yeah.
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January 15, 2010 – 4:48 pm
Just now, I was informed that one of the people whom I had been working with, whom I hadn’t known for very long but counted as much as a friend as a colleague, had passed away a few days before Christmas last year.
I was supposed to meet him and some of his friends in LA, the Saturday before Christmas. When I got a message that the meeting was off, I was uneasy, but even that foreknowledge could not buffer in the slightest the shock I felt when I heard the news, directly from another mutual friend who had been completely devastated.
Alexander was brilliant and inspiring at what he did, and he was also warm, smart, fun, and had that sort of slightly twisted sense of humour that Belgians have. I liked him a lot, much more than would have been warranted for the short time we had known each other, much of which dealt with brainstorming the planning of shopping malls and drinking copious amounts of beer and wine while we were at it. I liked him so much, I was even going to introduce him to my girlfriend when we met up in LA…
I have never experienced the loss of a friend. I was never torn up when a relative passed away, and I had always wondered if I was simply emotionally stunted in that sense.
Now I sit here at my desk at work, typing up this message while my eyes threaten to water, and my chest feels like a massive hand is pushing down on it. People say that when they hear of tragic news it feels as if it hits them; now I know what it means.
I suppose this is what grief is. Although we were just a small part of each others’ lives, there was so much we could have done. You cry for all the things that could have been.
I still can’t believe it. Alexander is gone.
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June 21, 2009 – 4:21 pm
Phew, took forever. It was painful, but not through WordPress’s fault. It was my $&%$ router and my $%^# internet connection that made this a total nightmare. I should’ve realized sooner because power cycling the router seems to have solved my connection problems.
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November 16, 2008 – 9:26 pm
I just came back from a wedding in Singapore. In total I was there for 24 hours, some of which I spent having lunch with an old friend I hadn’t seen in 7 years (she has two kids with a third on the way, and the last time we met we were traveling carefree through Japanese hotsprings); attending the wedding itself (which was of my project boss at HSBC oh 6 years ago, to a girl who had come into our office to teach us how to use Thomson Financial); and scrounging in my old apartment in Singapore for some missing Hekiru CDs, cloth strips for boxing, and my two foot tall RX-178 MKII Gundam model, all of which I failed to find.
Standing in my old room where I had spent over two years, good times and bad, I looked at the stuff I had accumulated over 10 or so years of existence. Some from my days in Michigan, a hell of a lot from Japan after that, and the rest during my tenure at HSBC in Singapore. I had a ton of magazine cuttings and posters and assorted Hekiru stuff, but I also had hundreds of CDs, old photos, a long outdated desktop, nostalgic books, and clothes I will never wear again.
Failing to find the stuff I was looking for, and feeling quite down especially about the lack of Gundam, I picked up a few good books, stuffed them into my backpack, took one lingering look at the life I used to have, now sporting several holes in the shelves and drawers where I have been removing bits and piece every now and then, before stepping back out of the apartment and locking the door. I mentally noted that I should one day drive a truck down, stuff everything in, and haul it all back up to KL or Penang.
I had forgotten I owned the Utena LDs. I toyed with the idea of bringing a few more CD cases back. I missed my massive bookcase. I felt guilty about not really wanting to deal with my Hekiru posters anymore.
And somewhere I mourned that these 10 years of my life are now little more than old and faded things that only I know of. My friends from Michigan are long gone, my Hekiru friends are mostly estranged, my work colleagues from Singapore I’d probably not see again until Clare Koh gets married. I have my friends in Japan, but the ones from the DreamArts days are also far behind.
Time is a river, and happiness and sorrow are fleeting, and sometimes, you find yourself standing in a dusty room holding a battered old book and feeling a little sorry that you don’t know where the rest of the series is.
Music: M01 from Kara no Kyoukai Chapter 1 Soundtrack by Kajiura Yuki
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November 5, 2008 – 9:41 pm
It’s half a world away and pretty far removed from life here in KL, but it’s relevant, and depressing.
Marriage is an artificial institution created to symbolize the bond of two people who find happiness in each other and wish to continue doing so for the rest of their lives. I think everyone has that right, to hope for a happily ever after. It’s not the same if you just say, well, yeah I think we should give living together forever a go.
Feel bleh the last few days, and I don’t know why. Things are going very well for me, and I wonder, is the other shoe going to drop? I can weather disappointments and upsets, but trust me it’s not fun.
And dammit, I want a happily ever after too. And I was hoping I could do it in California.
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May 4, 2008 – 3:34 pm
Last Tuesday I finally moved back home to Malaysia. The week before was absolute chaos as I was packing all my crap and shipping it home, and I had to move to another place because my visa didn’t get extended in time for my initial departure date. Plus I had a sudden business meeting in Manila right before my move date, then I had contracts to review and people to call… etc etc. But I finally made it back, and took off the next morning for a dive trip in Layang Layang.
All of which explains why I haven’t written up on MacF. I’ll get around to it.
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April 13, 2008 – 10:07 pm
Okay, I’m done with the hack and slashing for the time being. I’m using a slightly modified version of Bob’s Silver Light theme. I think it’s more readable now, but the whole site still feels too bright. Hurts my eyes >_<
Might go in later and do some serious mutilation with the colour scheme. Also need to organize my About page with all my links and shit. But for now I guess I’ll just enjoy my new Sheryl title pic, heheh.
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April 13, 2008 – 5:49 pm
After more than 3 years of enduring spam comments (and amassing close to 15,000 spam in my moderation queue despite turning off comments), I have upgraded to 2.5. T’was a lengthy process complicated by the mistake of not reading the “Detailed upgrading instructions” and thereby trying to (fatally) upgrade from 1.2.2 to 2.5. But after some sql surgery and restoration and following the instructions to do a 2-step upgrade, Tabibito is back! Stronger! Faster! Uglier! :D
Changing the theme will have to wait a bit. It took me nearly 4 hours to get everything settled down. The first upgrade and panicked restoration happened after I woke up, without any lunch. I now know a whole lot more about MySql :P But all’s well that ends well, and I am feeling pretty satisfied with myself. Especially since this upgrade solves both my spam problem and the bug of having my posts show up in reverse order.
I’ve just futzed around a little with the new interface, and I have to say WordPress is one sweet piece of work. I did user interfaces for a living, not so long ago, but even in my glory days I would never have dreamt of implementing some of the nifty AJAX stuff they have. Because I would’ve been afraid of getting lynched by the developers, you know.
All in all, a very productive, if somewhat stressful, Sunday.
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January 27, 2008 – 8:06 pm
They say that writing stuff down in a journal before going to bed is a good way to empty your brain of distractions so you can go to sleep easy. Maybe it’s true, but I always feel that I don’t know what to write these days. Most of the stuff I don’t want to bother to think about, much less put down in writing. Plus, I’d rather consume than output.
This frame of mind bothers me. First of all, I feel guilty for not being productive. I also feel guilty for not being more organized. For instance, I have wanted to split this blog into “anime” and “personal” for a long time, so the good stuff (anime ramblings) doesn’t get cluttered with the messy stuff (the inside of my head). But, I never get around to it, so I don’t write anymore. Then I feel bad about not writing.
This is where Tina Su’s blog “ThinkSimpleNow” comes in. Great stuff, very good common sense. In addition to advice, it also makes me feel better because now I know I’m not the only well-adjusted person in this world to be, well, not quite so well-adjusted. Insecurities, guilt, jealousy, self-doubt, lack of self-esteem, lack of motivation… Everyone has them in spades. I was just lucky that I never experienced any of this until I hit like, 24. Weird, man.
Nowadays I wonder if I can ever go back to that carefree self again. I also wonder why I became the way I am now. And I realize that me feeling that my past self was better is not a very positive frame of mind.
Anyway, the real reason I’m making this post is because I’m waiting on ep 20 of El Cazador, and it’s taking it’s good long time. El Cazador is the third in Bee Train’s girls-with-guns trilogy and so I should be eating it up, but in honesty it took me forever to get started. I quit after every ep up until like, 6 or 7, when I decided, screw it, this is one series I have to watch through because two bloggers I respect say it’s great, and so since I’d rather consume than produce, I consumed.
Okay, so I’m up to ep 20 (speed watching since I quit my job last Monday) and while I’m not struck by it, it’s not a chore to watch the next ep. Which is better than, say, Cashmere Mafia (Caitlin, you’re gorgeous and I love you but obviously the writers don’t) or Sarah Conner Chronicles (Summer Glau is especially gorgeous, and Lena Headey was great but then she starts dating geek guys and T-800 starts wearing dead people and suddenly I’m not so thrilled anymore) .
I’ll let you know if this series makes my rave list.
The best thing I’m watching now though is CSI. Up to Disc 6. Eagerly awaiting the last two (love Tsutaya Discas which is a delivery rental service). Will give Bones a try.
Lest I appear to be a total couch potato, I will casually mention that I’ve put in 5 days of boarding in the last 8 days. Nyah. Jyouetsu Kokusai is an awful ski resort, Kawaba is damn nice for a day trip, and Nozawa Onsen is awesome for a couple days if you have plenty of snow and money.
So, now my immediate goals are 1) look up tips on how to get better at boarding 2) figure out if I want to spring for a driving course ($2000 in Japan, what a rip, but I’d probably be a damn good driver at the end of it) or try for a license straight off, or go for just the motorcycle license.
Okay, that about sums up my life at the moment. Feeling very restless, will change environments soon I guess unless a miracle happens.
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July 9, 2007 – 12:24 am
Hmm, it’s been two and a half years since I started this blog. I’m not quite sure who reads it… it’s a terrible mishmash of animeshipping and rather pointless angsting. Only the animeshipping is of value :P
Anyway, my last couple of posts have been rather bleak. Rest assured people (the one of two of you who bother to wade through this), I am well and alive, and no I do not intend to kill either myself or someone else. Life isn’t that bad, work isn’t an awful meat grinder, and the gf is fine when she’s not moody, which is pretty much the case for all females, hah.
A post on a friend’s blog about working out the differences in an inter-cultural relationship prompted me to put down my thoughts as well. Yes, with my level of Japanese and based upon the very positive reactions from friends whenever I delivered my quirky gaijin humour, I didn’t think cultural or communication difficulties would arise. Well, I was wrong.
Actually, it’s not just purely cultural or language disparities. Upbringing counts highly too, and of course even people from the same country will fight over trivial differences. In my case, however, not knowing what is cultural and what is personality-based is frustrating as all heck, for the both of us. That’s something the we have to work to overcome, but dang it, I wish there was more tolerance on the other side. Japanese people, even those who profess to gaijin admiration, are surprisingly narrow-minded about acceptable behaviour. Whereas in the US, being different is simply being different (unless it impacts your work), in Japan, being different is either a cute quirk, or it’s a problem that should be fixed.
Hmm, I’m probably guilty of overgeneralization there. I guess the main lesson is, it’s hard living with someone, and it’s even harder when you don’t communicate on the same level. Still can’t find a good way of working it out… Most things still tend to come out as accusations, and that builds helpless confusion and resentment. Gotta just hang in there, and remember that difference is half the fun, and indeed much of the reason for initial attraction.
BTW, Monster Hunter Frontier is surprisingly addictive. If even I, the jaded gamer, find myself going on quest after quest to collect materials and cash for new equipment, you know they have a real hit.
Of course, don’t change the fact that the gf is playing like 70 hours of MHF a week, to my consternation >_< damn gaming addicts
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July 7, 2007 – 5:07 pm
are really good, the bad times are really bad. I consider it pretty shitty form to spew discontent on one’s blog, especially if you have postings that have actual information and so may be of interest to people, as opposed to being a personal stress relief outlet.
So, I shall simply write, “Why the hell do I have to be so miserable?”, and go for a run. Because exercise is the ultimate cure for the blues, cancer, Third World poverty and global warming.
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April 14, 2007 – 11:51 pm
Okay, I haven’t posted in a long time, but a lot has happened in the last few weeks.
You see, sometime in February, someone from my old workplace contacted me and asked if I was interested in joining a startup by Production IG and this other venture company. The startup had two projects, an anime community Clappa!, and a character driven blog service Decoblog. I’d be heading up the management and financials of the company, plus giving support directly to Clappa; Decoblog would be run by the guy who started the startup.
Up to this point, I had intended to kinda give up and go home, maybe. But then again, my (non-existent) love-life looked like it might have a faint gasp or two, and then there’s this absolutely incomparable offer to 1) put my MBA skills (hah) to some use, and 2) work close to the anime company I most appreciated.
So, to make a long story short, I’m know in two heaven-and-hell situations. The first being work, where I’m doing a headache of a firefighting job on a total mess of an operation, while having these great conversations about anime and the anime world. It’s sooo awesome to finally talk to people who relate, and they like Noir to boot! The second being my new housing situation, which is a two room apartment a 10 min bike ride from work, shared with the object of my romantic aspirations. Sadly, it’s only an aspiration at the moment. The other thing that sucks is that my new place has no net access yet! Dammit! This is perhaps even more annoying than the non-advancement of my love-life.
Anyway, from now on, watching anime is pretty much part of my job. I have a lot of catching up to do. The candidates are:
- Red Garden (manga was interesting and my bro likes it, so it has to be pretty good)
- El Cazador (dude, Bee Train x Kajiura Yuki is back! None of the Tsubasa crap, give us subtext-filled girls with guns any day!)
- Wellber no Monogatari
- Lucky Star (KyoAni, but I’m willing to give it a try coz Star Crossed Anime says it’s good, and he loved Simoun)
- Claymore (same reason as above)
- Murder Princess (coz Star Crossed says it has rockin’ music)
- Nanoha StrikerS (um, coz Yuribou says it’s good :P)
And maybe some other new stuff that Clappa is covering.
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April 26, 2006 – 10:45 am
Was it the sake made from space yeast that I had last night? 1 year’s worth of lack of sleep and exercise? Poor nutrition? Lack of veggies in my meals? That really shit dream where my house got renovated into some dark, narrow corridored monstrosity, my dad has a useless butler, and I walk into one of the rooms to find my boss under the covers with someone I like?
Makes me think that sometimes your mind is just fucked up and there’s not much to be done, except live a little healthier and smarter.
One week till Golden Week. Ho-hum.
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March 16, 2006 – 6:28 pm
Phone call from my mom sparks a sudden reconsideration of my life here in Japan. The idea that I should be returning to the homestead, something that’s been curling away in the back of my mind for most of my life, is hit with a full blast of oxygen.
My dad runs some businesses, and he’s not young anymore. He’s damn good though, and he’s done very well. I studied econ, worked in M&A, picked up an MBA from a top school, and here I am, in Japan, trying to get massive websites up and loving it. It’s a massive waste, people say, that I’m not home helping my dad wheeling and dealing and making headlines and landmark takeovers or whatnot crap.
I know what I enjoy, and it’s not wheeling and dealing. But I also believe it is a waste that I’m not doing more with my dad. Hey, blaze of glory and all, I’m not immune, yeah?
This morning huge deal went through, and I can’t help but think, it’ll probably take me 10 years to pick up a fifth of what my dad knows, and I should go home and get started.
But, I know that I like it here too. Is it cowardice? But here, I’ve learned what it’s like to be in a permanent community, where every year friends go skiing together, where they throw b-day bashes every month for the people who were born that month, where people work so they can play, and play so they are sane for work, and nothing more.
God, what the hell should I do? I think if I had someone I loved, who loved me, I could go home, and do anything. In the end, is that all that matters?
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