Illusion of Words

Update

No, I’m not cut off from internet, or dead, or anything. Just have been lazy updating the blog. Anyway, school has been going on for a couple of weeks, and wait - is it only September? I thought I’d been through 3 months of school already.

Alright, granted, I haven’t had any ‘real’ exams yet. Although I did fail miserably on one mini-test, the first time I’ve done so here. Flu season isn’t quite officially here, I think, but already it feels like nearly everyone went down with the flu at one point or another. Thank God I am unscathed so far. But everyone was dropping like flies, swine flu or not. Psychological?

I miss TV, really. And I’m using a free wireless connection, totally unsafe and unreliable. And slow, although the speed is already probably ten times Malaysia’s. TV season starts next month, mostly. While I don’t catch any dramas, except for the occasional CSI:Miami (at least, during the last tv season), I do want to watch documentaries. Discovery Channel, Spike, History Channel, Nat Geo and all that (some) good stuff. You see, with dramas, the internet is rife with them. The network websites usually have the full episodes on after a couple of hours or a day. But you can’t get the documentaries as easily. And I miss watching documentaries. And not to mention some random movies that might come on - Turner Classic Movies channel, anyone?

Let’s see, have I seen any movies lately? Watched ‘Spirited Away’, and ‘Eternal Sunshine of …’. Good stuff. Latter was thought provoking. Why would anyone want to erase memories of somebody? So if the breakup is painful and all, but there are always the pleasant memories, and all that you go through, pain included, makes you who you are - hopefully a better person. I especially can’t quite forget the lady who wanted to erase memories of her dog - her dog! What could be so painful that you had to forget your cute little pet forever? The movie can be slightly confusing if you don’t pay attention, since the timeline appears to jump around at times.

Since this post is quite long, my faithful readers deserve a picture or two.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

A mess, that’s for certain. I cleaned it up, but now, a week later, it is almost as bad as the picture. I thought of buying a new guitar amp, but considering the small apartment, and having no other situation in which I play, it is just not feasible. So I take a deep breath and let go of that thought, for the time being.

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Youtube and Memories

I came upon an article yesterday, mentioning the Top 30 cartoon theme songs. Of course, whether it is the top 30 depends on the individual, since I did not recognize 2/3rds of the list. But there were the good old stuff - Gummy Bears, Scooby Doo, Ducktales, Animaniacs.

I realize, however, that while I was part of the TV generation growing up, being in Malaysia meant that our cartoons were somewhat different and outdated. That is, we did not watch the same cartoons at the same time they premiered, so the timeline is somewhat off for us. But I do remember every evening, we’d get half an hour of cartoons on TV, and of course, there is the Saturday morning segment.

Which included my favorite show when I was 10 - Masked Rider. Yes, it is the lame copy of the Japanese version, and it is a poor man’s substitute for the then popular Power Rangers (not that Power Rangers is any better, looking back now), but then we weren’t allowed to watch Power Rangers for some reason or the other. Masked Rider was on Saturday mornings, and we wouldn’t miss it for anything.

I suddenly had the idea to look for Masked Rider episodes, and guess what? A whole load of them, full episodes, not just clips, on youtube. I couldn’t stop smiling watching through one, it turned out to be the lamest and cheesiest thing I have ever seen, but then it was serious business back then.

It’s amazing what the internet can do these days. I never thought I’d be watching this long forgotten and scorned show, a decade later. For us, it brings back memories, for the new generation, it is something new (I seriously doubt kids today would watch such things though, now that they are spoiled by amazing special effects). Only a few years’ difference, and things have changed. Today’s kids spend their time playing computer games. If they watch TV, it is rarely the animated cartoons of our age - it’s the Disney Channel live action stuff, or else Spongebob Squarepants. Truth is, there are few good cartoons today. At least, going through Cartoon Network these days is bound to be a disappointment.

But for me, and many others, the joy and anticipation of Saturday morning cartoons will remain always, a fond memory of a bygone age (that is, why don’t you try looking for your old fave cartoons on youtube? There is nothing like good memories of old cartoons/shows).

Silly, but nostalgic.

On a side note, I was looking through the wiki of Masked Rider, and noticed that Saban Entertainment was also responsible of the Mystic Knights of Tir Na Nog, which was one of my favorite shows after Masked Rider ended, but we never finished watching it, because we had to move houses and the new place didn’t have ntv7… I actually remember that clearly…

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Britain’s Got Talent

The British talent show is getting a lot of hype these days. Of course, everyone has watched Susan Boyle sing. Now there’s a little 12-year-old also wowing the judges. Seems like every season of the show has one misfit and one little kid who sings better than most of the population.

Susan Boyle’s rendition of ‘I Dreamed a Dream’ has already hit millions of views on Youtube. Watch it here. I suppose there is a lot of psychology going on behind all this. If she’d been pretty and normal, I don’t think the support would reach such heights. I won’t attempt to explain this phenomena, since I’m hardly qualified to. Besides, I’m not quite sure why it’s all that way.

Of course, little kids also get to people. Like the 12-year-old Shaheen. (Watch it here)

All these makes American Idol look lousy in comparison. Actually, I only watch the auditions of American Idol, because after that, it gets boring. Just like every single endless season. So as you can guess, I’m one of those people who think American Idol has outlived itself and ought to end. But still, it has so much support… American Idol has a limit of age for contestants, so I guess that pretty much narrows it down quite a lot to the same old type of people, mostly.

I guess Susan Boyle is a reminder that those of us who are misfits and not socially -acceptable can still dream dreams and make it happen someday. Even Jesus, in his life on earth, found company with those shunned by society and spent time with them. I feel that the not-so-kindly nature of human beings will still prevail within the show (Britain’s Got Talent), and I feel that exploitation will occur, especially more so with so much support. (Am I making sense?)

Posted in Music, TV/Movies | 2 Comments »

Life after Spring Break

I haven’t updated in a while, but then there isn’t much to talk about. Back to the routine of school, but it’s already mid-April, and in a month’s time, this semester would be over. It’s hard to believe sometimes. Papers coming up, of which I have barely started, or started and got more confused than ever. Like that biology career paper. It’s just confusing me more and more.

Too many documentaries recorded on my tv tuner finally got to my hard drive with its scanty 160GB. The sad thing is I’d to delete some documentaries before even watching them so as to make room for new ones. Ok, so I admit, I record them but I don’t necessarily watch at once. Or for a while. Anyway, I was keeping an eye out for a good deal on external drives. For that, Slickdeals is one awesome site. Members post deals they find, which are commented on by others, so it’s much more reliable. So I finally found a WD 640GB drive for about $57, which included a bunch of fillers since I’d to use a $25 off $75 coupon.

My poor iPod Touch’s headphone jack crapped out on me. So now, it’s basically just a sort of PDA, and no longer the media player it used to be. It’s still under warranty, however, so I suppose I could get a replacement of sorts. Of course, I say that, but who knows when I’m going to start doing something about it.

On a side note, one of best shows on TV is finally back. Guess what it is? Mythbusters! Would be very interesting to do something like that in the future - not on TV, however. Back in the present, I’m still undecided about a major. I’d like to take a whole bunch of random classes, but money - it’s always the deciding factor.

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TV Tuner

I’m not an avid TV fan, but sometimes, TV can be quite entertaining. Especially when you want to watch documentaries (Mythbusters! and other Discovery Channel stuff) and old movies - which are hard to find online. I don’t include those crowd favorites here (like Heroes, 24, etc), because if you’re in USA, you can just about catch them anywhere online, and in quite good quality too.

So after a lot of debating, I went ahead and spent about 70 bucks on this little piece.

I wanted to get the Elgato Eyetv, but truth be told, it was awfully expensive. So I settled for this Hauppauge WinTV-HVR 950Q, which according to extensive research online seemed to be similar to Eyetv hardware-wise. It took me a while to get the software working, but at last, it didn’t let me down. It isn’t all that great quality - I never expected much from the direct cable-in from the wall (yes, my dorm has the coaxial cable thing jutting out of the wall. But they block some channels… I think).

Was 70 bucks (plus another 10 for the coax cable) worth it? Time will tell. Right now, it’s kinda hard to say. When good movies that have always evaded me online come to some channels, it’d be worth it. The only bad thing is that, being just one tuner, I can’t watch tv and record it at the same time.

Oh, and if I go on recording like crazy, I’d have to buy a hard drive, which will definitely cost quite a bit more. But the 1TB ones seemed to have dropped in price, going below $100 regularly, whereas just a couple of months ago you’d be hard pressed to find one under $100.

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Library and Spring

I work at the library. Sometimes it’s extremely dull. But sometimes it’s all worth it, when you get to handle the new books coming in. Some with very interesting topics. Spend a little time looking through it and you will find some gems.

Like today. I picked up the book ‘On Film’, which is basically about film philosophy (many books of that type have passed through my hands - books on Hitchcock, war movies, etc). First part, the Aliens franchise. Ugh. Second part, Mission Impossible series. Bah. I flipped through them anyway. MI:1, MI:2, MI:3 - yeah, I know J.J. Abrams directed that one, but I don’t care about Mission Impos- wait, what is this? The word ‘Alias’ in italics? And the name Sydney Bristow? Good gracious. The first time I’ve seen Alias in such a context. I had a field day. It was awesome. And it wasn’t even just a mention - it was a good few pages. The author was connecting the story of Alias with MI:3, and spent half that chapter actually on Alias. The philosophy part was something like SD-6 pretends to be part of CIA, but is actually Alliance, and Alliance actually was being used by bigger stuff like the Covenant or Prophet Five (I’m not sure actually, I was a little too excited to read that part carefully).

Of course, the author just had to spell some names wrongly. Irina Derevko became ‘Elena Direvko’. Ugh. Elena is the other sister, for pete’s sake. And Rambaldi, the beloved crazy inventor of the 16th century who causes so much chaos (and silliness, at times) in the Alias world, was spelt as ‘Rimbaldi’. It’s just so wrong.

Ok. Enough about the book. On to spring. It’s nearing the end of February, and while the weather is still quite cold, I can see spring coming. The trees are beginning to sprout new leaves. Just yesterday they were bare and dry. Today, I see little buds growing. The grass is also beginning to show patches to lush green, in contrast to the dry brownish dead grass of winter. It’s all so amazing.

Posted in Alias, General, Books, TV/Movies | 1 Comment »

Thoughts on ‘Murder, She Wrote’

“Murder, She Wrote” isn’t exactly a great series, but good enough for me to watch every weekday night at 11 pm, right on the dot. I first heard of the show long time ago during a piano lesson, when I came across the sheet music of the theme song. Of course, I had no idea whatsoever of the show.

The idea was kind of taken from Agatha Christie’s books about Miss Marple (personally, I prefer Hercule Poirot. The idea of an old lady solving mysteries does not seem quite so nice.. somehow). Anyhow, in case you have no idea, Angela Lansbury stars as the mystery writer Jessica Fletcher.

Now this J.B. Fletcher is pretty much bad luck itself when it comes to people dying. Everywhere she goes, you can be sure somebody drops dead. I remember there was even a survey done about the percentage of dead people in Cabot Cove, which is the fictional town where Jessica lives.

The show follows a pretty generic plot. Jessica goes somewhere, or something is happening as we follow some people’s story. Halfway through, a body is discovered. Give or take 10 minutes later, somebody is arrested, and that somebody is usually not the guilty one. Jessica puts on her thinking cap and gets random inspirations from people’s small talk, or something that she sees. Then towards the end of the show, Jessica puts herself in some extremely dangerous position to draw the murderer out, and just as the murderer pulls out a gun and is about the silence her for good, the police show up.

If you watch the show enough times, you’d know that the guilty one is usually the one appearing most innocent. However, you can be right most of the time to always rule out Jessica’s friends and the cute young couple. And the one who gets arrested by the usually dumb police. The killer is then just one of the other people.

It operates on the basis that the murderer is one of the group within the show, a very Agatha Christie-ish thing. Usually in Christie’s story, a murder happens within a house, and so the killer is one of the inhabitants - take your pick. “Murder, She Wrote” pretty much follows that. Jessica won’t be able to solve the mystery, most probably, if it were some random person. But as it happens, she is always caught up in a murder mystery.

Good that the killer is always caught, but does she always have to put herself in such a precarious situation in the end? True, it may be to gain undeniable proof of the killer’s identity, but it’s kind of block-headed, in my opinion. She could get killed, but of course she won’t. And the show will always end with a frozen frame of her mid-laugh.

Posted in TV/Movies | 2 Comments »

The Cold Weather and More Movies

The temperature plummeted over the last few days - well, actually just yesterday and today. Today, the temperatures pretty much remained sub-zero, which is quite abnormally cold. However, real snow continues to elude me (I don’t want no “flurries”).

I used to wonder why weather channels and widgets and applications were important. But ever since fall came about and then winter, I understood. The temperatures were vital to knowing what sort of clothes to wear when going out. They could vary, no matter the season. Back home, you only checked the weather for rain or sun. The temperature was always 33 high, 26 low, give or take 1 or 2 degrees Celsius.

More Movies. Yes.
Cinema Paradiso (no picture, sadly. I’m lazy)
Italian movie. Josh Groban sang the theme song in his first cd. Today I got around to watching it. It was a little different from my expectations. I thought it would be another full-blown love story which will have me switching it off halfway through. But no. It follows the life of Toto, or Salvatore, and his friendship with Alfredo, who works with the projector in the cinema. And of course, there is a love story between Toto and a girl.

All in all, kind of charming, as we watch how the movies influenced the rural Italian society and bring together a little boy and old man. The way the people cry and laugh watching the black-and-whites is quite amazing. As a rule, I usually dislike little kids in movies who enjoy torturing adults, but thankfully the cute little Toto did not turn out to be that way, which made the movie much more bearable. Be cautioned, though, the movie contains perhaps a scene or two which are not family-appropriate. Other than that, great movie to laugh and cry with. And for the older folks, perhaps a time to reminisce about the first black-and-white movies in cinemas that changed the world (in a way).

Oh, and the soundtrack features the same theme over and over again, and after listening to it all throughout the movie, and then Josh Groban’s version, it’s stuck in my head. Melancholy tune, definitely.

Posted in TV/Movies, Weather | 1 Comment »

Seven Pounds and Home Room

Two quite distinct movies. I’ll start with Home Room, which I don’t have a picture for. Independent film with limited theatrical release in 2002. Anyway I watched it, obviously. It’s about the aftermath of a school shooting, and an exploration of the effects on two very different individuals. Interesting study. It doesn’t give a particular reason for the shooting. All in all, a pretty good movie, although I wish it had less bad words - the reason it was rated R. 7/10

Seven Pounds has the distinction of being the first movie I watched in a proper movie theater in USA. It’s hard to explain what it’s all about, because the only way for it to be enjoyable is to have no idea what is going on. Of course, it depends on the viewer. Some would probably figure it all out in the first few minutes and lose interest for the rest of the movie. Some probably have no idea. Me? I was somewhere between the two.

So the movie starring Will Smith, is about this guy who helps people. The backstory slowly unravels throughout the movie until the final moments, which if you haven’t figured out what was going on by then, you’re either very dense or not paying attention at all. Some parts in the movie are lacking - I didn’t like the romance thing at all. But Will Smith did a good job as usual, and if the first scene of the movie were deleted, perhaps it’d be harder to guess the entire plotline and thus bring a more enjoyable viewing. 7.5/10

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Taken

See, I don’t normally watch this sort of action movies. Anyway, Liam Neeson is awesome and besides, the trailer looked good.

So anyway, it’s about an ex-CIA agent Bryan (Neeson) who has a daughter who insists to go to Paris despite his reservations. While there she is kidnapped by sex-traffickers (for once, the dad is absolutely right). So Bryan spends the rest of the movie tracking her down - and killing everyone in the way. The kidnapping scene, as shown in the trailer, was done well. And from there, it’s all non-stop action.

It was kind of unrealistic, in that Bryan seemed to take on superhuman powers, beating up everyone. Nobody or nothing mattered, he just had to find his daughter and save her. Along the way he met quite a few corrupt cops. I did wonder how he managed to escape the consequences of creating such a huge mess - the body count was pretty high. Also, for a PG-13 it was kind of violent - but I may have been watching the unedited version.

I guess I watched this movie because it kind of reminded me of Alias - a father who would do anything to save his daughter (who knows how many countless times Jack had to save Sydney’s butt, “sacrificing” people along the way). Overall, “Taken” is a pretty good action movie, exciting to the end, even if it is kind of cliched and the ending is entirely guess-able. 7.5/10

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