off to a crackin' start

So, yesterday was the first day of O-nine.

If I were back in Jakarta, the order of day would predictably be:

family quiet time right after midnight
church service at 6
breakfast at 8; get ready for 'the rounds' with extended family
set off around town for 'the rounds'
come back home for quiet dinner
relaxing time (e-surfing/reading/chatting)

However, with differing residential constituents and geographical location, 09 day #1 becomes more akin to:

extended family heart-to-heart talk/quiet time
breakfast at 10-ish
lunch at 12-ish
set off for shopping or movies (I went for the latter) (with Dad
walk back home
quiet dinner at 8
relaxing time

Since my mum had been asking me to spend some quality time with her, I initally asked her to come along, but she honestly and tactfully declined due to the fact that she almost always fall asleep in movies (they aren't her thing.) She suggested me to ask my dad, and I did (we haven't had much quality time together, either.) We went here, as it was pretty close to home and we could get back home easily on public transport. The cinema was pretty packed, and the queues made me wonder if we would ever get the tickets in time for the next showing.

(We did.)

We went to see this hilarious movie. Which he liked... but it had boring bits in the middle, so he inevitably dozed off. I felt bad for him falling asleep whilst in the cinema. Somehow I persuaded him to stay to watch another movie, and he was kind/gracious enough to shell out the fare for two tickets yet another time (with the inherent risk of the movie could be boring he could fall asleep once more), so we went to watch one from a different genre.

The second choice of movie unnerved me, but I'm glad it turns out to be so good my dad didn't fall into winks at all. I didn't even bother to look at my watch and check the time. It was that good.

So, afterwards we walked home... and the rest is, readers, as has been outlined above.

Hope you have a good time with your family ^__^

Keeps Getting Better

I watched this event on TV a few days ago.
Why I bothered to write about it was because of this performance: there's something with dancing men in suits. (If you're not residing in the States then the next best shot would be this link.)

There is a plethora of who-rips-off-whose-styles hypothesis, but I'm not getting into that. I enjoyed the performance, period.

Affair

Seeing this PV reminds me of this series.
It's a style that's been popular for some time now. I don't know for how much longer this kind of white-based aesthetic sense will last, but one thing I know is... I do enjoy it.

And, on a consumptive note, the Motorcycle is dead and this is in.
(I wonder if Alma Leather stocks stingray skins.)
Colour-wise, pastels go with many things and I recently had a medium-term morbid fascination with mouse-grey... which I've been trying to shed off. Not because it's a shade I deem childish or overly corporate, but because there are so many other colours out there, waiting to be picked and used. Never mind the more recent green overkill I'm putting myself through, which I also try to outgrow.

2008 PFF

...now opens.

Given the lack of broadband where I'd live on weekdays, I'll be downloading as much as I can on weekends and watch them on my (other) (3G) phone as the week passes. I'm yet to find favourites this year. I'll find them!

The index page design is decidedly more:
flowery...
leafy.......
coquettish..........
organic...?
I wonder what he was thinking of, or what the brief was on.

And now, it's your turn to pay a visit there ^__^

(We Love Bure-Bure)

Postmodernism is bricolage, no?

So, I came across a few of these SZS-inspired animation clips, tweaked to illustrate characters from other games and anime series. I am drawn towards substantial amounts of absurdity found them interesting. And the 'original' one is here, if there is such a thing as 'original'...

There's apparently a Mr. Pharaoh and Mr. Turnabout floating around too. And a Kirby.

However, the CG version still tops my list because (1) I followed the series (2) it was the first rendition I saw.

Special thanks for calad and gaban in introducing CG and SZS.
You guys will do well in marketing promotion ^__^;

(mad hatter)

Here's a fun video to watch... enjoy!

Striking imagery. Can't help but wonder why RCA millinery graduates have plenty of the wild side in them... look here too for more crazed imagery.

Your Friend The Rat

I was person #3 to borrow CSM Southampton Row's Ratatouille DVD.
(Well, that was a random fact and wasn't my point for this post.)

The DVD came with a wealth of extra features, including this amusing little shortie, which were immensely enjoyable.

On a tangent, my contemporaries/friends born on 1984 - hereforth on this post referred to as 'rats' - some of them are born on Saturdays... a .75 second recall brought forth Aletta (whose two-dozenth birthday is celebrated today), the ever-diligent David Sakti (who is one of the few 'Davids' I know well), myself and Yaki. Only 1984 people who were born after 29 February will share the same 'birthday' day in the week for the rest of their lives, as those born before leap year day would sometimes have the one-day extra they will catch up on the following non-leap year.

As I'm such a chronological pattern freak, I'm going to list the dates on which 1984-ers were Saturday-born.

March 3, 10, 17, 24, 31
April 7, 14, 21, 28
May 5, 12, 19, 26
June 2, 9, 16, 23, 30
July 7, 14, 21, 28
August 4, 11, 18, 25
September 1, 8, 15, 22, 29
October 6, 13, 20, 27
November 3, 10, 17, 24
December 1, 8, 15, 22, 29

On a different note, there are a number of people (despite their year of birth) who tend to share the same birthday day with me. These are Tomoaki Ishii (he better still be alive) and DJ. Yes, they were born on the above-mentioned dates too.

As for my family, my sister's birthday day falls three days before - that's a Friday in 2008. This year, my dad's falls three days after (Thursday) whereas my mum's falls two days after. There are still a lot of relational formulations I can potentially do, but it's still easier to remember calendar dates over days-in-a-week differences. Well, sometimes it works counting however many weeks away, though.

Enjoy counting! ^__^

De-Lovely

My sister has a... weakness.
Whenever she comes back from the cinema, she would be most predisposed to share about her excitements and, unavoidably, the storyline of whatever movie she just watched. This situation has happened to a number of must-see movies (I could accurately recall her blabbing about these three blockbusters), and De-Lovely was no exception. It usually takes me several years to un-memorize whatever voluntary reviews she shared with me, after which I would start the hunt for movies on DVDs.

Let's say she was very impressed with De-Lovely she immediately proceeded to purchase the movie's soundtrack CD. I have listened to the CD's tracks to death since then, and have come to love some of them. The songs gave me a definite (if not slightly hazy) idea of the movie's major story arc. However, I still had lots of "huh? Shouldn't it go this way..." moments while watching the movie. The songs - which have a general upbeat jazzy mood - concealed a darker struggle the characters had to deal with. And yes, I find this concealment idea interesting...

All in all, it was good entertainment. To forget today's the last day of the proms! And it's held not far from where I live... D: Luckily, I still got to see the fireworks. Also, I blabbed about the proms on this blog at this time of the year last year - wow o.O

Finally, I'd say I'm utterly thrilled with the level of service Amazon doles out to its customers. I purchased the De-Lovely DVD late Thursday afternoon, and received it through the mail today... just in time for Saturday night movie-watching.

It does make me feel relying on eBay for better price (nominally) may turn out to be false economy - I'm still waiting for my copy of this book to arrive! There are only three weeks of vacation left, and I'd like to try out a number of things this book instructs upon, so having the book in hand as early as possible helps.

Alright then, have a good weekend ^__^

(Portable Film Festival)

If I get asked about this summer's most memorable films, I'd say most of them belong to PFF.

I've rated quite a number of them, and apparently have watched a more obscene number of them (broadband access is useful.) When I started rating them I had been a bit haphazard about what constitutes 3, 4 and 5-score quality films, so here I'll just post a list of clips I find interestingly noteworthy:

The Little Dictator
The Changing Man
Guide Dog
The Trainee
Verschlossen
Cedric
George Grows
Zeid's Little Bomb
Red Bull Music Academy
People In Order
Feist 'My Moon My Man'
Sometimes I Feel Like This
Booth Story
Multiplicity
Kompis
The Whisper Stop
I Remember Lebanon

One good thing about these videos is that you can download them off the website - there's a non-exclusive licence/permission given to the festival organisers to distribute the contents (more legal info can be found on the site's 'Submit' section.) Just make sure you reference whatever you leech off as these filmmakers' work and not pass them as some other people's works.

Altough it may have an amateurish air, PFF turns out to have a higher quality entertainment factor in comparison to YouTube. The festival also gets a huge three-quarter page spread on The Age... not bad at all!

There's only a few days left before the carpets are rolled, so one better hurry to visit and watch them! Alternatively, you can download them off the site and keep them for later viewing - I might do that with some of my favourites.

I'd like to know about the clips you like, so please feel free to leave comments here or on the scribble section, or by e-mails if that suits you :))

Have a good day!

(grinagog)

Just to make it brief: I'm having a PV orgy! This post is going to be splattered with a lot of music videos. No, I'm not gonna blame it on cr (yes, because of youu...) but Nodame Cantabile is one good lot of entertainment. The classical music reference alone is worth listening too, along with alien-sounding sound and visual effects. Hopefully my dad buys into this...


Allegro Cantabile - if there was one song that got me hooked to Suemitsu & the Suemith, this was the one. It's like refreshing tonic for the soul... I see this one as a pick-me-up music and the MP3 stays in the mobile phone. Anne thinks the PV is murder on white piano.


Konna ni Chikaku de - last post's title. The blame goes to some cr guy and wikipedia, but the singer's voice is appealing. Her ethnicity is interesting, too: she's half African American, half Korean... and sings in Japanese with no trace of engrish (extra brownie points for her ^^ ) She vaguely reminds me of Kurara Chibana.


Sagittarius - a newcomer, having first heard of it within the past 48 hours. It comes from [what I see as] an 'approved of' artist/musician. I haven't got a file, but I reckon my housemate (who is bound to return by the end of the month) would be able to get me the CD... there should be no major problem.

(I'm trying to work out some illustrations out of these musics...)

By the way, it seems like grinagog (sans derogative sense) is quite illustrative a description of my mood right now...

Lastly, which one of these three songs do you enjoy the most? Take care! ^__^

(anime-inspired food)

It's been such a wonderful weekend wrap-up today... erm, yesterday (Monday?)

I went out with Apink and his friends from work (one even came from as far as Zambia!), and walked around town with them. Pictures will be uploaded on flickr later... that is, once I get them from Apink. Oh, and by the way, he left UK way earlier than I thought he would, so I ended up having a free day today. Armed with some reviews, I ended up watching anime all day long. Yes, you... thanks to you xD

Amusingly, while watching Claymore I suddenly craved for the smell (and taste) of my mom's homemade sukiyaki. It consists of sukiyaki beef and sliced onions marinated in soya and Worcestershire sauces, and cooked on a pan with a hearty knob of butter. I better try to recreate this dish in the coming weekend! It'll be splendid when served on top of rice :D

For poinkys: y'know, if you've got that 3PM syndrome, you can always get your own tagboard... that way we can chat and bicker all we like without having to resort to e-mails or chat programs. It'll save you 10 minutes and you can zap home on your pet dragon :E

Have a nice day! ^__^

Kelembutan Pagi

Since there wasn't enough time for me to procure a French visa, I delayed my trip to sometime in late November (after I hand in my works) or early January. Sigh.

I went to Staines on Tuesday to stay over at my uncle's house (note that the term 'uncle' used here refers to the Asian concept of treating with respect a person with little or no blood relations to you.) I love the place! Not only the house is new-ish, the family was lovely, too. I wasn't time-rich enough to spend three nights at his place, but it was definitely a good stay. The food was a winner, and so was the bathroom! :D I'm going to stay over at his place during a no-class weekend, fingers crossed ^__^ I was also inspired enough to watch Dor and Omkara, two Bollywood movies with stunning frames that were thoughtfully shot. These two movies may inspire me, I believe :))

Staines (and the journey to London Waterloo station by BR) reminds me of suburban Melbourne and the commuting trips I used to take to uni. I would sit idly, perched next to a window, enjoy the sun and watch the world go by. The house in Staines has a couple of leaf-shedding trees around it (I could see one standing smack-bang on front of the room I slept in), so I think it's really cool. There are no trees on front of my house - why is the whole pedestrian walkway thing paved without a single hint of greenery!

Enough blab for now. I enjoyed the stay and the 50-minute trip to London Waterloo, anyway.

As for work, I am running around with lots of ideas but not enough materials to make things happen. I'm finding out the way I think is pretty weird for my class group. It might mean either I am not as weird as the majority of art/design students are, or I am significantly weirder than I have imagined myself.

That's all for now; gotta go and do so many things! (Sometimes I wonder where all these energy and time I need will come from. Would anybody tell me please?) Take care!

Dalam kelembutan pagi
Buana berseri
Dibuai bayu dini hari
Sejuk di hati

Kusambut pagi sendiri
Tanpa kau melati
Namun tak kulupakan dikau
Satu denganku

Padamu angin ku bertanya
Mungkinkah abadi
Bahagiaku kini
Ku pasrah Ilahi

(GIGO)

Have you watched the movie "The Da Vinci Code"?

Just to clear things up for the conspiracy-hungry crowd: the novel is based on a document called 'Dossier Secret', as well as several books that were written based on this 'Dossier Secret'.

Well then, have you heard of the term 'GIGO'?
If you haven't, it's the abbreviation of "garbage in, garbage out", a phrase denoting that any low-grade material used in producing another will definitely yield low-grade products or services (it's like cooking chicken cordon bleu using chicken breast meat that has gone off.) This is exactly how "The Da Vinci Code" (and other above-mentioned books) blur the line between facts and cooked-up imagination. 'Dossier Secret' is a hoax created by Pierre Plantard, wanting to milk cash out of unsuspecting persons. Hence, if the novel's main assertions are based on hoax, the whole thing is a hoax.
(Ooh yeah. Now recall those get-rich schemes you come across. This is a believe-me scheme you're coming across.)

Let's return to this post's topic. I think the movie sucks the way Memoirs of a Geisha disappoints me because the producers are trying to wedge a thick, five-hour-to-read novel (for me anyway) into a 150-minute movie. The CGs (if CGs were used at all) suck. Memoirs of a Geisha saved its face with its cinematography, costumes, sets and Zhang Ziyi; The Da Vinci Code blew itself up with its storyline in disarray and the fact Ms Tautou has none of the sexiness supossedly portrayed by Sophie Neveu's character. Okay, I like guys and I'm straight, but the costume team really didn't get how 'smart and sexy' is not pleated skirt and cardigan - that's schoolgirl look, by the way.

Save your buck and watch X-Men III instead.