9 by Tim Burton

Was completing my Trailer Tracks for the magazine when I stumbled across this little baby. I think it's gonna be another Tim Burton wonder when it hits the big screen on the 9/9/09.

Take a look.

Cate Blanchett Vanity Fair February 2009

Walau, she's hot in the latest issue of Vanity Fair. So gonna get the issue.

Sad

So, my five-day break is over. Such a sad, sad thing.

Unlike some others, I never missed being a student. I love working and my job, at the moment. However, I sorely miss the long breaks that come with being a student.

Term breaks, mid-term breaks, festive breaks. I don't have them anymore. Such a sad, sad thing indeed.


On a different matter, I hate driving in Malacca. Oh, of course KL has the worst traffic jams but Malacca has something even more annoying - slow drivers.

Yea, of course slow drivers are careful drivers but then again, they're a pain in the butt. Driving at 60km/h on a three lane freeway in the right lane? Annoying.

Maybe I have been driving too much in KL. Sad.

I have seen

I attended The Seven Deadly Scenes at KLPAC yesterday to watch a friend perform for the first time on stage. Didn't really expected much (the play not the friend, mind you) but I was surprised that it was actually very good. It was thought provoking and I felt utilizing the whole floor rather than a set stage for the skits was an excellent idea. It was like being a silent participant of scene itself, sitting and watching but yet personable in alot of ways.

My friend of course did a fantastic job :)

So I had a good time watching the unfolding scenes of various sins. A sin I can identify with in life? Definitely pride - but on that day itself, I think it was greed.

Does wanting something you know it isn't yours and you know you can't have, count as being greedy? Even when you want it so badly it hurts?

Jobless for a reason

I read this today with disgust.

It is a waste of RM70 million which ultimately comes from tax payers and hence, me - no matter how little I'm paying in taxes at the moment.

To be frank, the only way to make them marketable is if they only could just grow up. It isn't so much the language, but more of their immature mentality that is preventing them from getting jobs. From what I have seen and experienced being around these people, I think they are just sad people who lack the ability to think for themselves.

If they would have used the years in university to develop some personality instead of organizing clubs to further perpetuate their 'herd mentality' or 'race-preservation', they would be job-ready already. Aren't social skills something a student inherently acquires over the years while studying without the need for special retraining?

Now don't go blaming the universities or lecturers. It isn't their fault if these jobless graduates fail to acquire at least a modicum of common sense to allow them to speak in public without embarrassing themselves. They have only themselves to blame.

Why must we, the others pay the price of their incompetency?

Going down under

I managed to catch Australia at the media screening in Pavilion today. Was it good? Was it bad?

It was rather okay I guess. Although, I didn't have much high expectations for it in the first place. However, I felt it wasn't as bad as the critics have been saying.

Nicole Kidman? I still love her. She was the very image of beauty I stared at on screen growing up, and she still does it for me now. I think she's eternally gorgeous (plastic surgery and all).

Men are sad creatures

I read this yesterday with interest.

This particularly, was the highlight of the piece in my mind:

"Being a bachelor is also no consolation as expenses are much higher being alone as you cannot share expenses with anyone."

"I used to pay RM1 per piece for my shirt or trouser pants to be pressed but now it costs me RM1.50 per piece - a whopping increase of 50%."

Nice isn't it? A bachelor can't press his own clothes? He needs to learn how to iron first before he can start complaining about making ends meet. If he needs his clothes to be pressed, I'm sure he sends them there to be laundered as well. It's guys like these that give us, men a bad name.

The translation would be:

"Being a bachelor I have no wife to help me save on my laundry bill."

"If I can get married I can get free laundry services as well as a cook thrown in. My expenditure can be cut down by 50% with hardly any trouble at all."

Pathetic.

Tis the season to be jolly

It has been depressing walking around in shopping malls when all of the shops - except the ones you're looking to purchase things from, are having great discounts. I was actually getting more and more despondent as the weeks go by since the Malaysian Savings Sale started, until today. I got this in the email:


Christmas is certainly looking up.

There's a bag I've been eyeing.

Then some shirts.

Then some pants.

Then some jackets.

Then I'll end up starving and on the streets.

Oh well, as long we're happy during the festive season right?

(And it's not as if it'll be snowing in Malaysia, right?).

Aspiring whiners...oops, writers

I attended the MPH Creative Writing Workshop by Jim Plouffe, Editor-in-Chief of Reader's Digest Asia today and guess who I met?

A bunch of whiners.

I think what's wrong with these people are that they are totally not mature enough to actually be writing for a living (despite some of them are old enough to be grandparents). They turn up their noses at commercial writing, they turn tails at writing stuff they are not familiar with and they certainly turned their good chance at learning today into nothing more than a crazed attempt to get a measly story published.

Instead of asking about stuff that can actually improve their writing, they went all out with a mission to dig for insider info on how they could get their writing published in the Reader's Digest. Bombarding Jim about questions on how does the magazine choose the stories to be featured, what are the chances their pieces will be picked if sent in, and the list goes on. Then they started whining about writer's block, on not knowing how to start writing and how hard it is to become a writer in Malaysia.

My thoughts and experience?

It's easy to become a writer. It's a matter of just stopping the whining and applying for a job as a writer.

I've learn all these months as a writer that there is no such thing as letting a writer's block keep you from a dateline. That most of the time, you write what is needed and not what you choose. And of course, to find satisfaction in writing the simple stuffs like adverts and processing press releases.

Oh, of course they are beyond help if their only picture of a writer is of being a book author - and if magazines and newspapers are just not good enough for them.

Whiners aside. I actually felt the workshop was good. I managed to even get almost an hour with Jim in a one-on-one interview. Being a member of the media is such a boon.

:D

A Christmas Carol at KLPAC

It was a good turnout for opening night. The weather was surprisingly kind too - which says much looking at how it has been raining for the past days. The play? I'm not much of a critic on that, with not much of experience watching plays. But I think what's important was I enjoyed it.

Actor, Darius Taraporvala was just great as Ebenezer Scrooge and he totally embodied the character. He really did some wonderful acting. Didn't hurt that he looked the part too.

Though I would say the same for a certain Christmas tree, I didn't manage to see one. Yeap, no Christmas trees. A case of false advertising. Hmmmm?

Lol. While I'm on the topic. Have a Merry Christmas everyone.

Christina/Owen Final Scene Grey's Anatomy Season 5 Episode 10

Fantastic scene. So glad Christina finally found someone that really understands her. Being strong isn't easy at all.

Paper worth

I finally dragged myself to UM today to collect my degree. A piece of paper? Three years of education and all I have to show is a measly piece of paper. Is it worth all that much? I don't know. Maybe I don't appreciate it because I never really enjoyed my uni life. Those who know me personally will understand. And I would say my uni life really changed me - I think I became more embittered all those three years. It is sad how circumstances work in life sometimes.

Jurassic Joys

I loved dinosaurs as a kid. I had dinosaur figurines, stickers, books, bed spreads, tees - you name them, I had them. I could identify and differentiate all the different dinosaurs back then and I spouted dinosaur facts and trivia all the time. I even wanted to be a paleontologist at one time.

Which couldn't be further from the truth if you look at the present...

Anyway, with the death of Michael Crichton recently, I was reminded of how much I loved the Jurassic Park film and I went out to buy some of his books. After all, it has been a while since I last read Jurassic Park and reading it again sure does bring back memories. I used to watch Jurassic Park on VHS all the time. I think that the show became a much hated movie for my family - oddly, they did not share my passion for dinosaurs.

After reading the book I then downloaded the films. Yeap, I watched Jurassic Park, The Lost World and Jurassic Park 3 and although I'm not a kid anymore, I found that I still enjoyed them immensely. And I felt, the movies still have the most realistic looking dinosaurs on screen. CGI just doesn't cut it. Look at Jurassic Fight club on TV, they're laughable. Steven Spielberg did a fantastic job.

And of course, hats off to Michael Crichton himself for the fantastic novel. You rocked my childhood. LOL.