Friday, December 29, 2006
GUBRA: My Personal Review
gubra is yasmin ahmad's sequel to the her own hit movie sepet. this movie expands the main character's story in sepet, orked and introduced some new ones but failed to bond and connect them together. and these new branches of stories and characters, about a bilal and his (loving and playful) wife's attempt to try to reach to prostitutes working next door, is MORE interesting than the story of the main character, orked herself; which is not supposed to happen. i'm not going to spoil you the story so i'm just going to lightly touch about things that make this film what it is and discuss about stuff that concerned me the most.
my first impression when i finished watching the vcd (cetak rompak tak main la) is that this movie is trying too hard to be different, it's unnatural. yasmin tried to paint a realistic malaysia of her own but failed miserably in a convoluted world that tries to tell the viewers subtle and sometimes symbolic messages about inter-racial and no boundaries of love, forgiveness, love that lasts forever, family love and adultry; that are hard to understand and comprehend. this movie feels like it's been done by a foreigner that doesn't really understand malaysia really well. different doesn't always equals to good.
i like artsy and philosophical movies that has hidden messages interwoven into the stories but this film has poor storytelling and a lot of the continuity of the scenes feels very loose and were done amateurishly. what a disappointment. yasmin tried to tell an actually good story but unfortunately her directing skills is not on par and it really hurts the film. many of the dialogues and scenes are broken, forceful and doesn't make any sense. the acting in the whole is a hit-or-miss kind of a thing. sharifah amani as orkid and harith iskandar as orked's father is brilliant but ida nerina as orked's mother (she's over-acting and were trying too hard) and jason's brother (i don't know this guy's name but his acting sucks) are just horrible. i'm not being picky but these tiny negative points really bogs a potentially good filem down.
poor static camera angles, poor dialogue and lots of plot holes really disappointed me. and yes, sharifah amani DOES sounds stupid when she talks in english. they really have to improve their english pronunciations and please oh please, use good bahasa melayu next time ? i just hate rojak language.
although with all these tiny problems, this film is still worth your attention because there are several times that i felt the warmth and cozyness of the passion of a 'at-home' family love. it's not that great, but still it's NICE.
all in all, this movie IS indeed different from other mainstream malaysian movies, but that doesn't mean that it's great. this film were trying too hard to be controversial by touching sensitive issues forcefully and it shows. of course it's not a BAD film but maybe i was just hoping for a better one from a credible director such as yasmin ahmad. i should have not put my expectations too high. i was hoping that this film could topple JOGHO's greatness, but it failed miserably. but nice try yasmin, one brave try. i can't wait for her next film !
i would rate this film 2.5/5.0 and i'm being generous. watch this film, and you might disagree with me completely. i still don't understand why the mainstream media reviews in malaysia were telling people that this movie is the best malaysian movie this year. maybe they are afraid to be called kolot (old-fashioned, out of date) if they bash something as new and different as gubra. CINTA is far better. this you have to believe me.
Friday, December 22, 2006
going home for raya haji
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
of mini towel, panties and spinach
so i'm going to write about what has happened recently. to start off, today i got a ' new year gift ' from the national health insurance for being healthy the whole year and not using my insurance rights. so to prize me for not using their service the whole year, they sent me a set of small hand towels and a couple of bionic soups that are environmental friendly. merry. before opening the package i was a bit skeptical. did they sent me a box of anthrax because i forget to pay them last year? was it going to be a box full of midget ninjas trying to act cute upfront but when i'm looking back, slits my throat and pulls my heart out? those little assassins! but no, i got an orange hand towel. nice. it's fluffy. i kinda like fluffy things. and mini-towels.
last night i experienced something new. i went to a 'go-kon' (合コン) with my classmates, three of them to be exact. to those who doesn't know, go-kon is a group blind date in japan and it's famous with young people trying to find a new boyfriend/girlfriend. it's usually done in a small group of people consisting of a balanced proportion of boys and girls. in case of the go-kon that i participated last night, it's 4 boys and 4 girls. and yeah, all 4 of the girls are 3rd year high school girls. firstly, i would like to clear everything up. i agreed to participate just to help my perverted classmate, murasawa to fill up the 4 boys quota. my intentions that night was NOT to find a japanese girl friend, ok? i'm just trying to help a friend and while doing that, i could have a hands-on experience with one particular japanese culture. i have enough problems and rainbow six vegas to make me look like i'm busy and occupied.
but minutes before we the 4 boys meet the 4 girls, i kinda thought this to myself: yeah it's ok if you're not doing this blind date seriously but what if all 4 of those girls, even one of them, are like, super cute and absolutely full of 'genki'ness? what if they're hot, kawaii, innocent high school girls that just wanted to ' try it ' with a foreigner like what i have read on blogs of a few and many single foreigners in japan? i mean, you have to be a dumb fool if you ignore that. suddenly i'm getting excited and i started to hope for those girls to be cuter than ayase haruka and hasegawa kyoko? what if they're this what if they're that. i learned the first rule of go-kon. NEVER. i repeat. NEVER put your hopes high. yeah we met the 4 girls right. and sadly (although i'm not supposed to be, remember i'm only filling up the quota? stupid me) all of the girls are below average. i don't believe they're real high school girls. one girl even looks like a worker at a canteen or a food court, you know what i mean? those who looks like 'obasan'.
but it was not bad. we had some good conversations about a lot of things. looks like all 4 are very close friends. all of them want to be an elementary school or a kindergarten teacher. that's nice but i don't know about the other 3, but i'm SURE that obasan would end up in a canteen serving food. NO DOUBT ABOUT IT. out of all 4, there is one girl that i would consider OK, with a flash of genki and kawaii essence in her. i don't know why, but there are a lot of young japanese girls that has an uneven set of teeth, including her. lets call her tootsie. she is the most interesting of them all, but i'm not saying that i'm interested in her. but my friend murasawa and kawajiri seems to like this girl, but they're a bit shy. kawaii ne.
so although it's merely 5 ℃ outside, tootsie wears a short mini skirt with high heels. if i was her i would surely have frozen my vagina in the first 30 minutes. got her nails done with some diamond-like thingy stuck on it and all sort of weird japanezy trend going on, i don't really understand. i have a slight amazement with what these girls could endure just for fashion and looking good. hot or cold, mini skirt forever policy is a very hard policy for them but what can be done, japanese men like to see some legs i guess. but the no 1 thing that japanese men like is none other than a big, huge, eye popping set of hooters. stupid peer pressure.
so we went to a nice japanese style restaurant where the tables are brought close to the floor but you can put your feet under the table because there were feet space dug from the floor beneath the table. so you can put your feet below or just sit on the floor. i don't really know why, but tootsie sometimes chooses to move around trying to change her sitting positions. and yeah, although with the poor lighting condition, i unintentionally saw her panties when she did that. i swear it's just coincidence. call it luck or total misfortune, i didn't mean it. it's white with some fruit images on it. strawberry, banana, pineapple, grapes and maybe some guava, i don't really see it clearly. i felt so much guilt. i felt guilty as o.j. simpson. and what's worse, she noticed that i saw it. so she asked me with a big smiling blushy face: " you saw my panties right?". i got shot in the head at that time. so i horribly and desperately tried to explain to her that i didn't mean to look at it, it's just my good reflex skills at noticing something good to look at; and i was bestowed with the marvelous skill at the age of 7. i'll talk about that later, IF i remember to write about it. i don't mean it's good to look at, it's just, you know.... she smiled back and said " it's ok. it's my fault actually, i should be more careful." and being careful is not what tootsie is good at. i started to believe that she's doing those movements on purpose. i don't really mind if a lady volunteered to show me their lovely panties, but she's still an underage school girl and i really feel weird about it. to think about it, why the hell did i agreed to participate in a go-kon with a bunch of japanese high school girls in the first place? damn, i'm a BAD person. or maybe i just have too many perverted japanese friends, like murasawa.
so tootsie wants to be a kindergarten teacher right? so from out of nowhere she forced me to listen to a children story about a family of happy fingers, that she wrote herself. the idea is simple. the thumb finger is the father, index the mother, middle the brother, ring the little sister and pinky the little brother. so little sister is jealous of little brother because every one in the family closes their eyes on every shit the little bastard do; but when ever SHE did something wrong, she got scolded. i'm not really paying attention because it's RIDICULOUS !!! even for a children's story !!! then we also played some simple children's game, some of if i'm familiar with and some of it are totally new. it was not bad at all.
the other 3 girls, i really have nothing much to say. obasan is like an obasan. she talks too fast and were using far too much touhoku accent, i don't really understand what she's trying to tell me. another girl is just too shy to talk. i gave her one sentence of question/conversation, she answered it with another sentence of conversation. and all that we talked is about the vegetable meal (spinach mixed with goma) we had in front of us. she is so small and so short. her height is just 140cm! i'm sure if i kick her HARD enough, i can make her fly 50meters away. the last girl is the most normal one. quite talkative, dresses politely and she even knows where malaysia is! everyone else have no idea where malaysia is located, but when i said it's the country between singapore and thailand, they give me this blank look telling me this: where the hell is thailand and singapore? so i ended up drawing the whole map of asia starting from japan on the dining tissue. i think japanese people, especially the young ones should really take more interest in other foreign country (especially asian), not just usa. these people should stop being such fucking ignorant idiots!
after about 4 hours of a bad, crazy and boring go-kon, we decided to end the event by exchanging our email addresses. i only exchanged my email address with tootsie and the normal girl and i had no time to ask the shy girl and obasan for theirs because i got to catch the train. when i was on the train back to sansai, my phone sings the song of pac-man, a sign of a new email. no. it's not from tootsie. it's from obasan. she asked the normal girl for my address. and she uses too much 絵文字(emoji: advanced emoticons; ideograph; pictograph). just like a normal obasan, her emojis feel forced, like she was trying hard to be like a normal teenage girl. i only replied her once. that's all. tootsie on the other hand is quite good at writing emails. and the normal girl writes to me like it's an official letter.
all in all, it was a time and energy consuming event that i don't want to participate in anymore, at least for now. i guess i'll sign off right now. i got some cleaning to do and i'm still not finished stuffing up my travel bag with stuff; because i'm going back to malaysia tomorrow afternoon yeah !!! i want to eat meat !!! hot red meat !!! i want to kill those delicious animals and eat them like a fucking cannibal hwahwhawhahahhhaa !!!
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
tom clancy's rainbow six: vegas
so my current rig's spec is pentium 4 2.8Ghz with HT, 1024mb RAM, 256mb radeon x1950 pro AGP and sound blaster audigy 4. playing at 1280x960 with all graphical settings set to ON and HIGH, this game runs smoothly without any noticeable hiccups and gives me a decent playing fps (about 20-30 fps). oh i love my rig i wish i can have sex with it.
i have been a great fan of tom clancy's rainbow six game series since the first one and my favorite installation is of course raven shield. the fourth game, lockdown is such a total letdown because it's basically a port from consoles that was made for dumb console players. no tactical planning, idiotic a.i. and a pain in the ass feeling of another fucking generic shooter made for those dumb console players. first person shooters should ONLY be made on computer; especially tactical ones. that was one dumb fucking mistake made by the developers and i don't want to talk about it.
after the terrible disaster that is LOCKDOWN, came the fifth game in the series: VEGAS. at first i was skeptical that the series greatness will never be born again. in a lot of ways, vegas is not as tactically fun or challenging as raven shield, but the developer has successfully implemented a new slick, wicked cover system that is not only fun and functional, it just simply WORKS. it is less tactical and much more forgiving and the gameplay speed really has risen up compared to the realistic approach that raven shield took; but the change has evolved and bring up the series to a new height of simplicity, style and feel. it sits right in the middle of the slow paced hardcore tactical team based shooter like raven shield and the more actiony hollywood action movie style games like kill switch. really interesting stuff.
like i said before, the new gameplay mechanic that i think are going to save the rainbow six series and hopefully other game franchise could look at it and learn something about it so that they can improve on it an put it into their own game is the new cover system. you press the right mouse button and you get your back against the wall. you press the directional key outside the cover you're in, pop out, shoot the enemy and pop right in. it's gaming mechanic genius. you could even blind fire behind cover when you're desperate.
with the pacing given a punch of steroids or two and the hollywood action movie style, you really feel like a bad ass elite counter terrorist cop guy. i also noticed the a.i. has improved with enemies taking cover and trying to flank you when they have a chance. i guess the developers has learnt something from another great fps with great artificial intelligence: F.E.A.R.
to be continued....
so the game is set in sin city: las vegas. the graphical power of the new unreal engine 3 is still not put into good use but the overall graphics in the game is still nice and the developers nailed the sin city look perfectly with slot machines, neon and even hookers and advertisement of stuff i don't care but has hald naked women on it. terrorists have taken over vegas and you're there to save the day. pretty generic story but really, do we give a shit about good story in an action game? but a decent one is a super plus.
there is a lot of stuff to do in the game beyond shooting terrorists in the fucking face. you could give orders to your 2 team mates to take cover, breach door, rappel from roof, heal each other and kill, kill, kill !!! it's really fun and exciting when you're carefully planning and organizing your team mates before entering a room full of terrorists. do you enter stealthly, pick a nice position that cover the whole danger zone? or place the door with explosive, throw in a flashbang or two and go in guns blazing ala rambo? it's your choice.
this game is also available on the xbox 360 and the only thing that's better on the xbox is it's graphics and during online play, you could use the xobx360 camera to take your picture and put it in the character in the game so that terrorist could identify your ugly dumb face and shoot you in the head. online. the controls are superior on the pc with the mouse and keyboard set up. in a nutshell, if you're a fan of an action tactical shooter ( but not in the level of hardcore ), you definitely have to check this out. on par with gears of war.
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Las Vegas Hooker 18+
Hooker replies, "It starts at $500 for a hand-job."
Guy says, "$500 dollars! For a hand-job! Holy crap! No hand-job is worth
that kind of money!"
The hooker says, "Do you see that Denny's on the corner?"
"Yes."
"Do you see the Denny's about a block further down?"
"Yes."
"And beyond that, do you see that third Denny's?"
"Yes."
"Well," says the hooker, smiling invitingly, "I own those. And, I own them because I give a hand-job that's worth $500."
Guy says, "What the hell? You only live once. I'll give it a try."
They retire to a nearby motel. A short time later, the guy is sitting on the bed realizing he just experienced the hand-job of a lifetime, worth every bit of $500. He is so amazed, he says, "I suppose a blow-job is $1,000?"
The hooker replies, "$1,500."
"I wouldn't pay that for a blow-job!"
The hooker replies, "Step over here to the window, big boy. Do you see that casino just across the street? I own that casino outright. And I own it
because I give a blow-job that's worth every cent of $1,500."
The guy, basking in the afterglow of that terrific hand-job, decides to put off the new car for another year or so, and says, "Sign me up."
Ten minutes later, he is sitting on the bed more amazed than before. He can scarcely believe it, but he feels he truly got his money's worth. He decides
to dip into the retirement savings for one glorious and unforgettable experience.
He asks the hooker, "How much for some pussy?"
The hooker says, "Come over here to the window, I want to show you something. Do you see how the whole city of Las Vegas is laid out before
us, all those beautiful lights, gambling palaces, and show places?"
"Damn!" the guy says, in awe, "You own the whole city?"
"No," the hooker replies, "but I would if I had a pussy."
Friday, December 08, 2006
exam's over ! i'm free! at least for a moment....
fuck yeah exam is over indeed! it feels like someone has lifted this heavy burden off my shoulders a bit and i do feel like i'm breathing a new, fresher air now; my chest jumps and danced like a little girl in tandem with the sound of the bell signaling the end of my last paper for the mid-term exam. it's cherry with vanilla ice cream.
today i got only 2 papers: 伝熱工学 (dennetsu: heat-transfer engineering?) and 機械力学 (kiriki: machine mechanics?). i did pretty well with dennetsu, i must be a fucking genius or something! but i can't say the same thing about machine mechanics. out of the 10 papers that i took, this subject has to be the worst one. i wish i had more time to prepare, well, it's over now so there's nothing else that i can do. fuck that. yesterday i got 4 (!) papers so that's why i don't have the time to write about it last night (like the first and second day of exam) because i was too busy and too tired. the papers i took was 生産工学(seisan: production), 制御工学(seigyo: control), ロボット工学(robot), 数値計算法(suuchi: statistics calculation?). i did pretty well, i hope. it was a hard day, but i was happy at the end because i did better than i expected. so to summon up my impressions about this semester's mid exam: i think i did pretty fucking awesomely good and this has got to be my best performance in my studies in japan. i don't want to brag and all but like i give a fuck about what you think about me, so yeah i'm pretty happy with myself.
after exam, everyone has this tired but happy look on their faces; i was dancing with mori, murata was singing the patriotic song of japan that were used to help japanese propaganda during the world war 2, murasawa is lying on the floor i don't know what the hell happened to him; and suddently, miyashita sensei called me told me this: i was chosen by the school to write an article that are going to be on the school's monthly magazine about my 3-year-long-life in nagano kousen and what i feel about graduation. i was asked to do a 600 japanese-words article about a subject that i don't really like, and there's nothing profitable for me, except i can put a picture of my most 'sparkling moment' during my kousen life (that's how the request translates in english, really!) on the magazine and that would be very nice for nostalgic memories in the future.
aha! remember my post about me leading the sports oath ceremony? they printed the picture of my fat ass when i was on stage, stretching my hand forward like a nazi pose! well, it's not a big deal anyways but still, it feels kind a good to know that people actually realized my puny existence. oh, and i also have hemorrhoids. i've been infected by this pain-in-the-ass virus for a week now and i'm still not getting any medical treatment. i just trust my ass to cure itself. he's a tough boy. nothing that my lovely ass can't handle, well maybe except a hard jewish gay cock. or any cock. even artificial ones. i want to kill all gay people in this world !
so now that the exams is over, i can finally turn my attention to my (still) unsolved '280000yen problem' that i've been avoiding direct contact with since the problem occurred right before the first day of exam. nice fucking timing. so my job now is to find more strong points that can be used agaist my assailants *cough* stupidfuckingsoftbank *cough*. my fight againts them starts again tomorrow morning. i don't want to talk about the details, but this really pisses me off. i'm one of those guys who don't get angry easily but when i do, man i'd do anything to fight back. you don't piss me off and get away from it. that's my quality assurance right there.
currently i'm also waiting patiently for my new graphic card to arrive. the mighty radeon x1950 pro! man i can't wait to play shader model 3.0 games like splinter cell double theory and rainbow6 vegas with this awesome card. this card goes on sale tomorrow in japan and i'll get my card this monday, IF, the delivery guy doesn't fuck things up. this is going to be my last graphics card update because when i'm upgrading my computer next time, it's going to be a whole new rig with windows vista, core duo 2 3.0ghz, 2g RAM, Sound Blaster Xi-Fi, a high end 512mb directx 10 card with shader model 4.0 graphics card and a japanese hooker. ok the last one is just a dream i had last night. and it was very nice.
i am also thinking and asking myself: is this a good time to pick up that sexy xbox360 that's been doing pretty good lately with the release of AAA titles like gears of war and r6 vegas? a LOT of other AAA titles are also going to be released next year like halo3 (hopefully). the ps3 and wii is shit right now, but just wait for a year and it'll turn from a fucked up ugly duck bitch into a hot saliva dripping beautiful white swan that everyone, from kids to grannies , wants a piece of. the future of console gaming is as bright as the flash light those 40-something japanese nerds with their big-ass slr camera used to take photos of girls in their skimpy, flesh baring cosplay costumes. ok, i admit it, i like those girls too, but these nerds is making me sick to my stomach. i mean, it's FREAKAAAAYYY !!! they took these pictures, developed it themselves and use it as their daily dose of masturbation-assisting material. malaysia don't want to be a developed country but has a basically, although this is very harsh, fucked up society and people like japan. perverts, pedophiles, bullying in school that lead to suicides, japanese weird porn etc. these is not what malaysia wants to be. wait a minute. exclude the japanese porn part. that was a gift from above.
wow what a long post! this time i don't want to put colors in my texts because it's such a troublesome when you write THIS much! damn, i have too much free time now! i should have done something more useful like exercising, practicing my cooking skills, playing violent video games and watching stupid japanese gameshows on tv. but i choose to blog. because it's cool. and you're cool too for reading this until the end. or you just have too much free time. what the hell are you doing? get off the internet already and go say hi to that old friend you've not been in contact with lately. tell him/her that i'm going back to malaysia from 21december to 9january.
until next time. assalamualaikum.
hilarious malay couple: USIK2
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
後期中間試験:二日目
ヨッシャ!試験勉強やるぞ!っと思ったら、ソフトバンクから電話がかかって来た。電話当番の1年生の子が俺の部屋に来て「電話ですけど、でも違うかもしれません。」と言って電話当番部屋まで案内してくれた。その部屋に入ったら1年生が何人かざわざさしてた。電話をかかって来たソフトバンクの人は俺の名前しか分からなかったから、多分電話当番の人が最初に「ムハマド タウフィック アリをお呼びできますか?」って聞かれた時に「タウフックって誰や?日本人じゃねぇじゃん?!」と思って、びびって、仲間からの助けを呼んで皆の話し合いの結果、タウフィックと言うのはあの5Mのマレーシアのタウフィックなんじゃなかという事らしい。ちょっと面白かった。びびってんじゃねぇよ1年生!
詳しい話はしたくないが、電話で話し合いの結果は結構良かった。その問題の28万円から一部を払わなければならない事になったが、まあ。。。全額よりいいんじゃないかと。でもはっきりいくらかっというのはまだ分からないけど、また新しい電話料金請求書をもらってから分かる。で、今週の土曜日に俺の910SHがまた使えるようになるって。それはそれでいいんだけど、俺はまだ納得いかない。0円にしてほしい。だから、この戦いはまだ終わらない。AND THAT'S BECAUSE I LOVE SOFTBANK.
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
OMFG !!! NEW HALO 3 TRAILER !!!
oh mee GOD !!! this is ridiculously too cool ! halo 3 dood! what else can i say? i got an erection after watching this amazing clip and i totally soiled my pants with excitement and nerdiness. thank you for making me a game nerd, I LOVE IT !!! after watching this, i have decided, i WILL buy a xbox360 when halo3 comes out.
i promise.
i present to you, halo3's latest trailer:
後期中間試験:最初日
今日は一科目しかないくて、しかも超楽勝だったぜ!機能材料工学のオッサン、そんな簡単な問題を出してくれて、まことにありがとうございました!100点取れるんじゃね?マジ ハッピー!まあまあ。。それはそれでいいんだけど、問題なのはこの先ですね。明日は科目が三つあって、どれでも難しそう!確立統計II、メカトロニクスと最後はシステム工学。軽く準備はしてあったけど、やっぱ不安。
っていうか、なんでブログなんか書くんだよ俺?!カペ作らなきゃ!
あ、忘れた。さっきソフトバンクの店に相談しに行ったが、俺の「28万円問題」(増えたよ馬鹿野郎!)の解決までにはまだ遠いらしい。面倒くせぇなマジで。まあ。。いいっか?試験終わってからまたあのソフトバンクの野郎達と再戦争だっ!悪いのは俺じゃない!完全に騙されて、被害者の立場に立っているんだよ俺!詳しい話はしないけど(面倒いだから)、とにかく俺は最後的に勝つ。抵抗してくる奴はかかってこいや!ぶっ飛ばすからな!
俺、ソフトバンク好きだけど、ファック THEM! I AIN'T GONNA PAY THOSE CHEATING JAPS ONE YEN!
Monday, December 04, 2006
oh noes !!!
shit, i fucked up. there is a 200000 yen worth of trouble i'm into right now. although it's 100% my fault, i just hoped that people i THOUGHT were my friends would've warn me about this earlier. i wished they'd do better than just shutting me out from important information. i guess i'm wrong about them.
i guess i AM alone. whatever. i can break what ever the fuck that comes charging at me. and i know i would not be trusting anyone to look after me, anymore. these people don't give a shit about me. but i got exams starting tomorrow so i should put this problem aside, on hold for a moment, and try to focus studying for exam. i'll deal with the 200000 yen problem when THAT is over.
although it's going to suck, i'm going to be fine.
Saturday, December 02, 2006
uwargh i hate exams
っていうか、下のレッドチリはどんな肥料を使って、こんな立派な形になるんだろう?;)