On going to the Osaka Twilight Festival

22 February, 2009

I'm going to go to this today with Charlie, who's just back from a mini-Gap in Brazil. :)

Shall I see anybody around?


More details and stuff here.

On V-Day and what else happened during my absence

17 February, 2009

Copied from my LJ.

Went to my first Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (free) summer concert on V-Day. It was so nice being at the Myer Music Bowl as the night softly fell to Rachmaninoff. Man, Rach. is da man. [Ungh...? Is it even appropriate to Fitty-cent grunt at classical composers?]

Had 2/3 of a LOTR marathon with kuropuu and watched Ip Man (Donnie Yen is the shit) before we heard her parents stirring and realised that it was 6 a.m. and scurried off and pretended we had been sleeping this entire time.


My neighbour's caught fire the night before last. I was on the verge of unconsciousness when I smelled smoke (more than usual, if you take into account the Maroondah-Yarra Complex (pdf) that's burning close to us) and someone was yelling blue murder and banging on the doors for everyone to wake up. The flames were something like three storeys high and it was so surreal; the entire neighbourhood standing silent in the chill night air watching the house burn. We heard the fire engines but they were lost further up the road. Moments later, five rolled up.

And then an ambulance.


Last night, I found out that a friend of mine had had a spinal tumour removed. He had it checked up here but the quack just told him it was a muscle problem. Went back to China and had an operation. He won't be back to Uni until July. :(

On learning to drive (and stressing out your supervising driver)

I've finally gotten my groove on (Fitty-cent grunt: ungh) and gotten around to driving--more than a year after getting my Ls. Read that as: needed identification for the Med. exam thing (Jesus, I can't even remember what it's called now...o_o;; M-something?) and hurried off to Camberwell to take the test without even reading the driver's manual.

I should be arrested or something.

Stressed out during the test and almost flunked it. But passed, instead.

Now I'm a road hazard. ;D

So my RACV coach is awesome and Eastern European (extra points in my book) and I make his feet scramble for the secondary brakes when I make one of my hasty turns--I have to thank Dad for that nasty habit: Slow down? Whaddyamean slow down when turning?

Poor Mum, though. When she takes me out, I bet she wished that we had passenger-side breaks. For the first and (I swear by my firstborn) last time, I ran over the curb when we were going through a roundabout. It was all because I was trying to listening to Mum, who wasn't saying anything useful (Keep left! Don't drive on to the curb! DON'T DRIVE ONTO THE CURB!!) and there was a car tail-gating me. ;__;


Anyway, I see myself being able to drive as being a first step in:

• going paintballing in Echuca (5 hour drive--woo!)
• roadtrip!
• getting myself onto the path of being a motorcycle driver

Yeah man. Wild and wonderful dreams. Ungh.

On being AFK

11 February, 2009

Currently doing a lot of stuff for my Uni club: Melbourne University Taichi and Wushu. Yeah. I’m fully cool. Like James Dean. ;D

That was totally my sekrit childhood dream.

I need to get the forum up and running and an all new website [in which I am inevitably take shortcuts by having it temporarily on Blogger] by O-week, which starts the week of the 23rd. Okay, well. Off I toddle!

On a bad heatwave

07 February, 2009

I'm being hemmed in by bushfires to my north and east. One of the train lines near me have been cancelled. People are being encouraged to keep power consumption low.

Things are worse to the west.


Walked outside today and was buffeted by a scorching hot wind that dried my eyes and burned my skin.

On strange sounding sounds in the night and trying to get to sleep

03 February, 2009

1. I'm brushing my teeth. Outside, all is dark--even the sliver of moon is not in view.

Kr. Krah. K-k-k-kr-raaaah.

I tense. A cold sweat breaks out. There's something primordial about hearing sounds you cannot identify (this is a noise that sounds like it's made by something crossed between a bird and a reptile) in the pitch dark.

I get out of there double time.

2. I'm in bed with the Godfather (read that how you will ;D)

Don-don-don.

Someone's walking up the stairs to our front porch!!

Don-don-don-don-don.

What. The. Hell.

3. A strong believer in the if-my-eyes-are-shut-it's-not-there philosophy, I turn my light off and try to go to sleep.

Roll roll roll roll. (sorry, I don't know how to make rolling sounds, whut)

Roll roll roll roll. (in the other direction now)

Roll roll roll roll. (past my window again)

Roll roll thump rahr! --scrambling noises-- (hah, rolled off the porch and onto the cactus, huh?)

Don-don-don. (up the stairs again for another go)

4. At least, unlike when I lived in the inner suburbs, it's not my neighbours having sex.

Fucking animals. (take that how you will)

On friggin' awesomeness

01 February, 2009

This is, indeed, friggin' awesomesauce.

Innovation in advertising is beautiful.

On the silly Life on Mars (US) review

Original piece from M - The Sunday Age

Remakes are always a tricky proposition especially when all you do with the remake is set it in America. Especially when the original is so peculiar: a detective thrown back in time, where his 21st century policing skills clash head-on with their 1970s counterparts; underpinned by his struggle to return to his own time; further underpinned by the question--is he really in the 1970s, or just completely bonkers yeah, sure, but still definitely better than the drivel that passes for quality programming these days--especially seeing as it works? Surprisingly, this US version is terrific funnily enough because the original was just that. There's a cracking cast, including Harvey Keitel and Michael Imperiolo oh blah--Simm! <3. The New York setting works brilliantly, every bit as dirty and claustrophobic as the Manchester of the original tcheh, but with a slightly different soundtrack and milieu you'd hope so. Unfortunately for existing fans, the series depends too heavily on mystery and surprise to really work the second time round so watching an exact (albeit American) replica is a bit tough on the intellect, but if you haven't seen the original, you'll love V2 why don't we just stop here and say: watch the original.

Thanks, lunatoic, you've got me riled up about this, too. And really, I'm never an advocator for watch the original!! better than the remake FTW and all that. I mean, I liked the US remake of the Office! Admittedly moreso when they moved themselves away from the UK script. There's great script and then there's the lazy version where you just take the aforementioned great script and transplant it in a new and foreign country and wow just watch the little bugger go! go! go!

Look, I'm willing to give it a go--just don't let me hear you harp on about how great the plot is or I'll give you something new to harp about.