28 April 2007 9:36 a.m. i am an ass. i do the donkey work in the lab. Sally and Alice aren't even coming in these days, much less pulling their weight. sure, it makes me look good to the staff, but STILL. i also have a martyr complex. and i make a mean Maggi goreng. ordering Disco Pigs (DVD store dude: "wah... never heard of it lah.") off Amazon would cost RM120. sorry Cillian, i don't love you that much. i wish Rafael Nadal would make less noise when he plays. only one man can wear a gold spacesuit and not look daft.
animal farm
stop it, you're making me blush
win
picture from The Cillian Site
p.s. i watched Perfume: The Story of A Murderer yesterday. it was awesome and moody and had lots of bare skin (not a spoiler). no one told me Alan Rickman was in it! (also not a spoiler)
17 April 2007 10:18 a.m.sci-fi? fan service? space schlock?
i think it's pretty hard to find a review or description of a movie set in space that doesn't use "claustrophobic" eventually. and sometimes (most?) "derivative", "hackneyed" and "clumsy" (ouch), but i digress. it's funny that a film with such visually brilliance is essentially cold in tone.
if you go to watch Sunshine alone, don't let the ticket seller bully you in to an aisle seat, because how will you be able to view the spectacle of the sun turning the full force of its glare on you? i love it when the screen turns white (this is not a spoiler). besides, you're not there to mope amidst the couples, you're there to watch human will struggle and (hopefully) triumph over adversity!
the "OMGWTFCILLIANMURPHYLURVE" impact is very small here, just so you know. in fact, his Dr Capa the physicist character is hard to relate to, with his weedy frame (ahem), near constant dispassion (WHITE HOT LIKE THE SUN) and (one) hateful glare, although the manly screaming was very effective. this is as unbiased an opinion as you can get, because it was a struggle to keep from squealing every time he and his electric blue eyes appeared on screen.
lest i appear hopelessly one-sided, Hiroyuki Sanada wins in every scene he's in. watch what the man does with the few lines he has and you'll see what "regal" means (even if it's kinda cliched eventually).also, if you read all the background tidbits on how the cast prepared for filming as i did, it would strike you that flying out to interview top physicists in order to understand how "their minds work" is a waste of time when all the characters had to do was say, "Icarus, calculate the trajectory of the carrots i'm about to hurl at Capa," or whatever. that's CHEATING, dude.
speaking of carrots, i doubt a biologist's job description is to be the earth mother figure and grow carrots. dammit, Michelle Yeoh! not once did i even see them eating the damn carrots.
and yes, the "twist" was disappointing. from that point on, it was a struggle to keep from squealing at Cillian Murphy and go, "wah wah wah juvenile space horror slasher flick wah wah wah!"
sorry.
the music by Underworld with John Murphy was cool though - it offset the majestic-type visuals to perfection, except the heavy metal sounds, which should have been... ejected, hur hur. and yes, all the drama was entertaining. or maybe i need to get out more. still, Cillian Murphy!
p.s. everyone should listen to Requiem for A Dream or Lux Aertena (i don't know what it's called) by CLint Mansell, the track used in the Sunshine trailers. it gave me the impetus to watch the movie, so, yeah. who cares if some might say it's repetitive, it makes me feel as if i'm on a mission to save the world!15 April 2007 8:52 p.m.learning to count to ten
navigating while mum drives is a trying experience for the both of us.
ItchyMicchi: okay, the map says we turn left here at the traffic light.
mum: no, we turn right!
IM: but, the map says...
mum: left side jam lah.
so we turn right at the traffic light and drive along an increasingly pot-holed road. the street lights aren't working. a cement-mixer truck has broken down on the roadside. cars are parked everywhere. how this is one of the hottest new(ish) properties around is beyond me.
i look out for a police station on the right side of a roundabout, which will be a landmark for mum on her run tomorrow (which the reason why because we're on this little jaunt). we reach the roundabout, and there is no police station.
IM: there is no police station.
mum: nevermind, we'll drive up further.
the road comes to an end and we have to make a right turn to go back. fortunately there are also road signs with arrows stating the only way to go is right.
mum: can i turn left here?
IM: NO. make a u-turn.
mum: you are so grumpy.
so we retrace our steps and are finally on the right track. the route will take the runners through a quiet little neighbourhood, away from traffic. the road is better than the one we drove on earlier and is totally free of other cars. mum drives at 40 kph, allowing two cars to overtake us.
mum: ha, now i can follow their tail lights!
IM: but they're going 80 and you're going 40.
mum: quiet, i'm driving.
the remainder of the drive is uneventful, except for another stretch of bumpy, unlighted road. the final stretch of the route requires the runners to merge on to a main road, and the turning isn't accessible to vehicles.
IM: okay, we have to make a u-turn on the right to go back.
mum: *steers to the left*
IM: !!! TURN RIGHT.
mum: WHY ARE YOU SO TENSE.
the end. i realise i'm a bad daughter. i keep telling myself that i must be more patient before i answer but i never do.
instead, i post pictures. Cillian Murphy makes my heart ache and my loins twitch. it must be love.
it's okay to lust over a guy with such an ethereal, gorgeous face, cheekbones, whatever, because he's not a girl and you don't have to get irrationally jealous thinking about how she's snaring all the attention that might otherwise be yours. plus, he has the added allure of a tight body. he's the perfect embodiment of the feminine and masculine, total yin-yang balance, dude. he's so hot, cookies bake themselves when he walks in to the room.
13 April 2007 8:37 p.m.old age is a bummer
Kurt Vonnegut
1922 - 2007
Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward.
as you say, sir. who knows how long he would have lived if he hadn't fallen down. i shall now sit in a corner and re-read all his books.
most writers state "so it goes" when writing about Vonnegut's death. i just wonder if they do it because they read someone else's piece using the same phrase and thought it was a good idea, or whether it really does illustrate their resignation to the fact that all good things will eventually come to an end, no matter how much it hurts, and they shrug and turn away, hiding the hurt of the sense of loss that has lodged like a splinter in their heart [which is no doubt already a frozen, inert lump due to the battery of a cold, uncaring world, like mine is]. 07 April 2007 11:49 a.m.whiney shite
as far as some things go, it's pretty unfair that the oldies get to say things like, "i was a hellraiser when i was your age! no one could handle me! kids these days are milksaps!" but then when some kid does raise some hell, then it's all, "aieee, no respect for their elders! you need discipline! a crew cut, that's what'll do ya!" make up your minds already.
we were at Ikea on sunday and all the grown-ups were getting the most out of the free coffee refills available (first cup costs RM3 and there's a choice of espresso, cappucino [made from capuchin monkeys OMG!!!] and coffee with milk). how is a cappucino different from coffee with milk anyway?
maybe it was the novelty of having coffee that didn't taste like nescafe (us posh bitches don't do instant any more, thenkyewverymuch), the wonder of seeing actual coffee beans in the coffee maker, the energy and urgency engendered by the idea of fresh coffee virtually brewed before your very eyes, or... the shiny coffee machine buttons that were so compelling.
their children were either bring repeatedly told to sit down and be quiet or running amok. yeah, way to teach the baby about boiling hot liquids.
anyway, the point is that children will learn quietly, and mostly by example from you, so i'm not surprsied when i see young 'uns jumping queue, hogging seats and loitering at Burger King.
i, on the other hand, was daring my father to feed a sugar-laden espresso to the next maniac kid who ran by before releasing it/him/her to its/him/her parents. fun.
07 April 2007 11:46 a.m.my father the
i wonder if i'll be a crank like my father when i'm his age. he had a meeting with some clients at a restaurant in the Equatorial hotel, and despite the fact they were indoors and sitting within view of a "no smoking" sign, they had the misfortune to share breathing space with three smoker jokers at the next table who didn't even bother to exhale in another direction (which is pretty much an empty gesture but mollifies me because i'm easy like that).
so, my father put on his best disapproving school teacher glare, which he practised when he was younger and had to educate yahoos who were only a few years younger than him, and said, "excuse me, this is a no smoking area lah."
as one, the 40-something dudes glared at my 50-ish father and one of the daft cunts had the temerity to proudly declare, "it is my freedom of expression wat."
you see what happens when you teach imbeciles to read?
as his clients debated between laughing or crying, my father clutched his fork and knife tightly and shook them like a man possessed, while baring his big white scary teeth at the smokers.
"you see this? you see this? it is my freedom to express how lousy you are. you are smoking in a no smoking zone, so don't make me use these on you! i can't control myself!"
unnerved, the smokers quickly left the restaurant, looking back to make sure he didn't follow them.
after his clients recovered teir composure, one of them said, "James... that was cool."
"i know," said my father, and resumed tearing at his food.
now, if those moral guardian types want to know where the young imbeciles are getting their lessons, all they have to do is stake out hotel lobbies and watch the senior imbeciles. easy.
04 April 2007 7:22 p.m.what are they like?
o fellow researchers, is it normal to spend hours sifting through abstracts?
when you're going through the literature on your topic, some names crop up more than others. i imagined Canning, Visvesvara, Hollister, Weiss and company to be those quietly intense types whose sole purpose in life is the unravel the enigma of microsporidia (protozoan or fungi? no one can say for certain).
they would look terrifyingly competent in their gleaming white lab coats, comfortably knowledgable about their field, conducting their research with almost complacent confidence, expectant of their impeccable findings.
and then, a pubmed citation i turn up states that LM Weiss is based in the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, BRONX, Noo-Yawk.
home of Anthony Bourdain! or was that New Jersey.
now i wonder if he/she likes lebanese bread and has arguments with the taxi driver over the fare.
04 April 2007 7:22 p.m.the most depressing question in the world
"when are you going to finish your masters ah?"
