Raves and Rants

Cyberpunk

Borrowed a copy of William Gibson’s “Neuromancer” from the National Library. I’m currently at the end of chapter one of the book (haha). It’s been pretty good so far but I’m not quite so sure if it’s as revolutionary as it’s been hailed to be: the cyberpunk novel pioneer. I believe Alfred Bester achieved this years earlier in his 1956 novel “The Stars, My Destination” before cyberpunk was known as cyberpunk. What’s refreshing to me however, is the thrill of discovering the origins of the now common term “cyberspace”, and finding out what really was the Matrix.

As for Alfred Bester, who is in my list of top ten favourite authors, his book “The Demolished Man” reminds me so much of the film I’ve been wanting to watch for a long time: Steven Spielberg’s “Minority Report” based on a Philip K. Dick short story (another one of my fav authors). They both speculate on how murder can be stopped through the use of psychic abilities.

Subjects: Books 書物, Music 音楽

Mood: Raves and Rants

Tags: Alfred Bester, cyberpunk, Gibson, Jeff Beck, library, lost, Matrix, Minority Report, PKD, psychic

"Suspend" + "Belief"

I just watched Star Wars II for the second time. It was a free screening from my mom’s bank. HELL it’s so much better for me the second time around. The first time I was too focused on the wrong thing: the dialogue. So it kind of ruined the experience for me, though the Yoda part was really funny and the audience was great that time. This time, I decided to ignore the bad dialogue and certain inconceivable parts in the love story — the keywords are “Suspend” & “Belief” — and… WOW.

Subjects: Film, Television & Anime 映像

Mood: Raves and Rants

Tags: Star Wars, Yoda

Half a china doll

The mouth isn’t as painful as yesterday evening when the anaesthetic wore of. But my left cheek is swollen today so my face is a little distorted and as the Chinese saying goes: Mei Lian Jian Ren (No Face to Meet People, which actually means I’m too ashamed to meet anyone. But I’ll take it literally heh heh) My mom calls me the Japanese doll. I say half Japanese doll, if you catch my drift.

Subjects: General

Mood: Funny, Raves and Rants

Tags: doll

Spidey Wins!

Spider Man reaps US$114 million over the three day weekend! Pretty cool huh!

Went out with my choir friends after my yoga class today as exactly as planned yesterday. Had lunch and dinner together. In between we went browsing DVDs though I never bought any in the end. Watched Spider Man again.and my feelings for the film are pretty much the same as the first time I saw it. Though, I find that I can better appreciate the jokes this time because in retrospect, the first time’s enjoyment was more like “I’M FINALLY WATCHING SPIDEY”. The audience today was more appreciative (different cinema) than the first time around and it helped.

BTW, it appears that today’s my ‘hiccuping’ day. I hiccuped 4 times earlier and now I’m doing it again as I type =(

Tomorrow I will be going to extract my wisdom tooth at the left corner of my lower jaw. Arrrgh. I’m kind of worried. I’m kind of scared of those injection needles they use to numb your gums. I underwent this sort of injection when I was about 6 if I recalll correctly.

Subjects: Film, Television & Anime 映像

Mood: Raves and Rants

Tags: choir, dentist, DVD, hiccups, needles, Spider Man, teeth, yoga

Owwwww...

Owwwww…just suffered a bump on my head while I was trying to lean back to read a book. I can be such a loser.

Anyway, can’t sleep, and don’t really feel like reading either (though I’ve got tons of books that I bought and haven’t read =( ), so I thought I’d blog a bit. Don’t mind the bad grammer ‘cos I’m trying to type my thoughts as quickly as possible. =)

I rewatched Wonder Boys today.I bought the VCD for S$13 bucks from HMV on Friday evening as I’ve been meaning to buy the video for about a year. I was looking for the DVD version but they didn’t have it at HMV. I’ve got a feeling that I have to thank the censorship board for that. =( Anyway, I’m going look out for the DVD version in other shops, if they have it, I’m going to sell my my VCD copy to buy it. Which leads to — naturally — what a great film it is. I had heard all the great reviews of it ages ago. When I watched it on Friday, I didn’t think much of it because I was largely distracted and rather tired. So I wasn’t paying much attention to the dialogue. I decided to give the film a second chance today because I knew I wasn’t paying due attention the first time. Anyways, the dialogue turned out to be funny as hell. I’d say it’s a dark yet subtle comedy. The acting is brilliant: Michael Douglas’s perfect as the sloppy english professor although one might not imagine him to fit the role considering the ‘suave’ characers he’s played in his film career. Tobey Maguire’s just Tobey Maguire (hahahah).

Subjects: General

Mood: Raves and Rants

Tags: DVD, loser, Tobey Maguire, VCD, Wonder Boys

Spidey!

I just watched Spiderman today. Was supposed to be Saturday after my exams but we (family) just couldn’t wait. After all it is Labour Day and since the ‘sneak previews’ are screening from 2PM to 9PM in cinemas island-wide (what an irony), it is a pretty good excuse. Anyway, how did I like the film? I say I love it. It’s a huge bonus that Tobey Maguire is in it (my sis likes Kristen Dunst). Tobey Maguire has been one of my favourite Hollywood actors (others include Jude Law, Ewan McGregor, Jude Law and Natalie Portman) ever since I watched Pleasantville (I think that was the first Maguire film I watched), and was my top choice for the web-slinger role in a film that I’ve been following in its developmental process since the 90s. I’m definitely going to watch it again on cinema after my exams are done.

Speaking of exams, I’ve got one on Friday and I’ve barely begun studying for it.Shit… I don’t have the motivation to either. Maybe I’ll go to Mcdonalds tomorrow to concentrate properly =( arrrrgh…

Subjects: Film, Television & Anime 映像

Mood: Raves and Rants

Tags: cinema, examination, Perth, Spider Man, Tobey Maguire

I hate presentations.

I hate presentations. I get nervous spells 70% of the time, and it happens when (one or more of the following):

  1. I’m not prepared enough
  2. When I’m mentally exhausted (especially since I’ve been programming and programming these past few days)
  3. When it’s one of those days where I experience speech deficiency problems (also influenced by the lack of sleep)
  4. Whatever reasons that are there but that I can’t remember right now (cos I’m brain-dead at the moment)

The worst thing about presentations is when I have to explain things into detail. It’s not that lack the ideas, it’s just that when I talk in front of everyone, I have this tendency to forget what I want to say. The only way to overcome this is by practising at home what I want to talk about during the presentation. I simply can’t slip into the position of speaker as easily as I would like.

The 2 presentations I had to give this week were disastrous for me. On Tuesday, my Business module presentation, I got nervous for a variety of reasons and though I’m not completely inclined to talk about it on this blog, one of the reasons I shall mention was the lack of sleep. In today’s presentation, well though I presented most of the points I wanted to speak about, I think I sounded more nervous than ever. Firstly, this subject New Media Art is something that really isn’t what I’m used to doing. Secondly, I’ve been having a nasty sore feeling in my throat these few days because I haven’t been sleeping well. Thirdly, it’s the lack of sleep again.

Subjects: School 学校

Mood: Raves and Rants

Tags: new media, programming, tension, yoga

Well, Sidney's all right now.

Well, Sidney’s all right now. He really scared the hell out of us on Monday. Me on the other hand? I can’t say that things have been great for me these past few days. It fact, it’s been horrible. I’ve got projects due within the next 2.5 weeks before I head for my exams. I’ve been only having about 4 hours of sleep a day, while the faculties of my mind are constantly being overworked. Just earlier, I spent about 10 hours on a programming assignment and I’m still far from completing it. I don’t think I’ll be able to completely satisfy the requirements by its due date which is next Saturday. Then there’s that database group project (which isn’t so bad since there are 5 people working on it, unlike this programming assignment where the scope is wider and the group comprises of only 3 members), and that 4000 word New Media essay of which I’ve only written down about 500 words. Urrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh…..

Subjects: General, School 学校

Mood: Raves and Rants

Tags: database, examination, new media, programming, Sidney

Seisouhen

I just watched the second part of the Kenshin Seisouhen OVA today. It took me days to get a complete copy. the default server for WinMX was kind of frustrating, so many connection and download problems… until I discovered this website Anime Fantasia. Through their OpenNap server, I had no problems locating and downloading the file quickly. It occurs to me that the people using the server are all anime fans who are willing to file share and will not disconnect you just because you have nothing that they want to trade from you.

Kenshin and Kaoru

Anyways, about the OVA? All I can say is…. WHHHHYYYYY? I watched the first half of Seisouhen (that I got from Ketsugi and could already guess what was going to happen. But still…WHY IT HAVE TO BE THAT WAY?!

That’s the irrational bit of me acting up I guess.

Subjects: Film, Television & Anime 映像

Mood: Raves and Rants

Tags: anime, Kenshin 剣心

A Beautiful Mind

I just watched A Beautiful Mind. My God, it’s so much better than I had expected. The film’s well-crafted and wonderfully acted. The film never gets boring and is sentimental but not overdone.

I’ll have to read the book when I get the chance. Maybe after my exams and during the holidays. I’m pretty sure the community library has it. Why? Because I’d heard about the book more than a year ago from my grandfather, before the film even began its preproduction stage. One day, while I was at my granddad’s house, he showed me this white, hardcover book that he had borrowed from the library, and he was telling me what an interesting character, John Nash, a mathematician who had won the Nobel prize a few years ago had been. How he suffered from schizophrenia for over 30 years and eventually overcame his demons while in the process producing other brilliant pieces of work despite his illness. I thought then, “wow”. But never thought of reading the book even though I never forgot the story in the abstract.

Subjects: Film, Television & Anime 映像

Mood: Raves and Rants

Tags: A Beautiful Mind, John Nash, library, Nobel, schizophrenia

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