1 2 3 4 5, 6 7 8 9 10, 11, 12.. Twelve!!!

Loved loved loved this sequence as I grew up, whenever I'm watching Sesame Street!

Hope it brought back some memories! :)

Once again, VG Cats strikes a chord...

Ouch... the ever-so-subtle VG Cats certainly summarized their feelings about what Michael Bay did to the Transformers aptly.

I second their opinions! x(

Autobots, Transform, and Roll Out!

Indeed, Optimus Prime's voice just rings so true in my head... ahem... I guess you can already tell I've watched the new Transformers live-action movie. Yeah, can't keep me far away from something like that! :P

Anyway, I've got quite a bit of expectations to fulfill when it comes to my favorite childhood toys/animation, so here are my rants/raves of it (minor spoilers warning!):

• The Transformers were animated well... major kudos to the guys who worked on it... only issue is that sometimes I can't figure out heads from shoulders (nor can my wife, who has only a vague recollection of the G1 TFs) - maybe I was a little overwhelmed, coz I was watching it from a iMAX sized screen!
  
• So maybe this was more tuned in for non-fans, y'know, folks who never watched the TF G1 (Generation One - the first seasons of the TF cartoons) series, or THE original '86 TF Movie, don't know Optimus from Rodimus, Megatron from Galvatron... but what was wrong with the original idea of the good 'ol Cybertronian Matrix of Leadership, Bay? I mean, AllSpark? Is that the best they could do? When I read about him talking abt it, it wasn't too bad... but seeing it for myself, well, I kinda felt let down that a beautiful thing like the Matrix of Leadership is replaced by... a black cube. Sigh.
  
• TOO MUCH CLOSE-UPS in combat scenes!!! Gawd dammit if I am gonna watch a movie about gigantic robots duking it out I wanna watch some of the action from a spectator's view, not from the CHARACTERS' view... I mean a few pan-ins to the characters is fine, but stop swinging your camera around the battles as if you are holding a damn hand-held camcorder!
  
• Megan Fox is hawt!!! :D
  
• Ok, so we all agree that Megan Fox looks smokin' hot, but I could do without the corny jokes and romantic blah-blah inserted. Stick to the original formula of having the humans as "compatriots" to the Transformers than being the "Chosen One" to defend humanity. I'm here from the 'bots, not your replacement for Sparkplug/Spike/Daniel (the -very different- WitWicky family featured in the original G1 cartoons)
  
• Sometimes one simply cannot sense a 3-storey-tall robot - no, make that FOUR 3-storey-tall robots - stomping around the backyard... :P
  
• Wished there was a kick-ass money-shot sequence... like Optimus' run thru the Decepticons during the "Assault of Autobot City" on Earth.
  

[END RANT/RAVE]

So... what are you waiting for, huh? Stop worrying about what a little kiddy-w00t-mad-fan like me have to say abt the movie and GO WATCH IT for yourself! NOWWWW!!!

btw, here's a nice CGI visualization of what Optimus might have looked if they stuck to the original G1 Toy's Cab-over design... looking at where his hands are supposed to magically slide out, I guess it would still involve some redesigning for Optimus to look like our favorite toy, and yet keep the reality aspect of it intact. Nonetheless, this design + video is the amazing work of an independent animator (and most-likely TF fan), so give him kudos by checking out his official site after watching the video!

More TF Humor

Just a compliation of humorous TF-related images:

btw, the Elephant is one of the versions of "Optimus Prime" released by Takara/Hasbro

Ba Weep Granna Wip Ninni Bong?

Transformers, and the Nintendo DS. ^_^

Comic strip from the geniuses at VG Cats!

PWNAGE!!!

Definition of "Pwnage":

Pronunciation Key
v. n. pwn, pwnd, :pwnage, :pwnd

1. From the Root word Own, and Ownage, the process of defeating an opponent or opponents at various Multiplayer Online Games, including 1st person shooters and Rts game simulators.

2. To Eliminate (a character) from a game whereby the character is lost and terminated including extreme frustration, whereas slamming the mouse and keyboard helps justify the action of destroying ones own property.

3. To describe, pride, joy and accomplishment.

4. To inflict pain and frustration to opposite opponents, where the character : (semi-colon) followed by the character P, creates the word :pwnage. :pwnage in most typographical form creates a "smily face" infront of the word, ownage. Whereby creating :pwnage, which stands for "I'm laughing at your Bitc* A$$, because I just Owned your A$$".

i.e. supreme dominance of anyone in anything


Visual definition:

Kudos to Momo for making such a superb piece of animation

Contemplating a child's side of the story...

Reading this linked post from Tomorrow.sg, the author describes his "ordeal" of his strained relationship with his parents. What would seem like overachieving, harsh and seemingly heartless demands, it does appear that this is a disturbingly common occurrence these days in the Heartland (based on what I read in the comments to Mr.Otaku's blog entry). It also reminded me of one of the story arcs of Jack Neo's home-grown movie 小孩不笨二 aka "I Not Stupid Too".

I personally feel fortunate that my parents chose their encouraging+loving method of bringing me up. They recognized my strengths, helped identify my weaknesses and provided me with an environment that taught me that you will only do as well as you intend to for yourself in life. Although both my parents were working full-time (plus my dad flew abroad a lot), my best memories of my childhood were of our family time together - whenever my parents were free we would take walks to the nearby shops or have a nice dinner out, or go window/shopping on weekends...

Even with my studies, my parents were always approachable for any questions I might have, and I know for sure my parents will try their best to find a solution for any issue I might have. I guess I've been real lucky... and I still feel that way now.

I really hope that both sides (parents and child) will be able to compromise in their stances, and find the most reasonable conclusion before attempting to point fingers at who is in the wrong... everyone partaking in these forms of argument are responsible for their aggression. This indeed is what I can imagine "growing pain" to be like.


As the wise Yoda said,

Fear leads to Anger.
Anger leads to Hate.
Hate leads to Suffering....

New speed tests for Time Warner Cable ISP!

Howdy folks, welcome back to my online speed test report! After my move westward from my previous abode, I've had to switch ISPs coz NO ONE ELSE services this area (outside of AT&T DSL - which is a no-no since I've already got a celly, I'm not gonna spend the dosh to get a land line I won't use)...

Rant aside, I decided to run some of the Speed Tests featured at BroadbandReports.com for this round to compare it with some of the speed tests I did while I was in my old place (Earthlink was my ISP, but the line was serviced by Time Warner):

Not too bad!

Rare natural phenomenon in Singapore!

Reading this on MrBrown.com, there was a sighting of a water spout (water-based twister-like thingy) that occurred off the East Coast shoreline just a couple of hours ago (around 2:45pm SG time)...

Here's what it looked it (VERY COOL), plus you can check out Mr Brown's post of it:

Photo credit to Razor of ClubSNAP (Details thru link)

Numbers game

A recent post of a Singaporean private tutor (that I came across from Tomorrow.SG) wrote about how the difficulty of Math syllabus can differ as you move across the continents... comparing how a University's test question varies in the Queen's Land against Asia's Big Red Powerhouse.

Now of course, I would dispute the fairness between the quality of each University's syllabus that they picked the papers from... but being married to a very intelligent and competitive Chinese wife, I can attest to the tenacity and drive that top Chinese students have to attain the best scores in their academics (and a lot of other things, like sports - my lady love used to be a fan of Yao Ming ;) .

On the same note, Singapore students don't get it easy either... especially more so these days compared to back when I was in high school! :)

Phew! ^o^

Update: Little mistake corrected, pointed out by Miss Loi! Thank you!
Update 2: The Wife also updated me on her current interests :p

Behold! The secret of the Magic 8-Ball!

Ahhh... the lovely Magic 8-Ball. Don't you just love it? It makes quick decisions for ya - with just a simple shake of the hand! Totally cuts down the need for you to tax your overly-saturated noodle for daily decision-making. Saving brain juice! That's what its all about! ^_^

btw, ever wondered what goes into making this wonderous contraption? I know I am... so here's someone who actually did find out! Click on the link and feast your eyes on the truth!

I have one of these on my desk in office!

What happens when you pull the Heatsink from a SUPER-clocked CPU?

Well, a bunch of guys tried just that. Take a Duron that's o/c'ed to almost 4GHz and pluck the HSF off... well, waddaya know? You get a nice big HOLE in the mobo! :p

Racing exoticars with the Best Motoring crew

Found this lovely BM (Int'l) race video of my fave Lambos racin' their Japanese and European rivals... naturally, Gan-san has taken the mantel of protecting the face of Japanese supercars with the latest NSX-R... :)

Video in Japanese with English subtitles (Narration in English)

Last speed test for Earthlink Cable Internet

So, does the actual download speed of my cable line is as what my cable ISP promised? I decided to give the new Flash-based Speed Test (beta) on DSLreports.com a try, and here are the results:

Cool results pic huh? These are the D/U speed results for my so-claimed EarthLink (Time Warner supported) 5Mbps cable line... for a weekend afternoon, with "best-case" download speeds at around 82% and upload speeds at close to 90%, I think it's ok. :)

Let's see how the cable connect at my new place fares... it's also Time Warner, but this time I'm going with the parent company (coz no other company services that rental community! Grrrr! Despicable monopoly!).

VT shooting: Student victims - R.I.P

Since it's at the top headline of every news outlet in the whole wide world, I thought I'd toss my 2 cents on this matter as well...

/rant-on

First of all, it don't matter if the gunman was White, Black, Hispanic or Asian. He's a mentally disturbed kid. A real narcissist with false perceptions of bravado. Disturbing is also how he meticulously set each step of his attack... even chaining the double doors on the first floor.

I was watching the news about his "manifesto"... that whole line of BS talking about the Columbine killers being martyrs? Or how you wanna die like JC? You're kidding, right? Pffft. You know what, buddy? You're GREAT at throwing excuses for your own problems... problems that you don't wanna face and don't wanna find help for. It's like over-using your credit cards coz you know ya gonna die and don't wanna worry about handling the bills. Geez, I mean if you wanna sh*t yourself into a hole, go on ahead... just don't believe that your 'Hey, check it out I'm the Dual-Pistol Killer' plot of living forever in the minds of people will work as you think.

From now on, your face, your image will be marked as the worst sign of mental & emotional weakness.

From now on, your family will be shamed with failing to address your personal issues. Your parents will be blamed for your upbringing.

From now on, your plot will be known as the plan for a stoopid person who decided to go on a shooting spree for some selfish and immature personal reasons. No better than some misguided suicide bomber.

I'm glad you blew your own face away coz you don't deserve to face anyone of your victims. You better hope and pray that your parents and family members will be able to find peace in all of this fiasco, for many many many years to come...

/rant-off

To the victims, may you rest in peace - you will be missed. To their families and close friends, I hope you will find peace after the storm, and slowly comprehend that this one event truly is nothing anyone could have possibly imagined happening. Our prayers are with you all.

AP photo courtesy of CNN

It's Your Day, my Love!

Crisp morning awakens,
A slight breeze encircles the nap of my neck,
Just the warm and slow breaths of my lover
who slumbers peacefully, and I gently tap on her lap.

"Good morning my beauty,"
I greet her on her special day.
We quickly go thru the morning routine,
as I usher her along the way...

Surprise!



Happi Birthday to my Dear...
Happy Berfday to my Sweet...
Happee Birfdeh to my Dahhhhhling...
Happy Birthday to C!!!

Friends & Family Engagement Party

January 13th 2007 was a memorable night for E & C... it was the night where we invited our closest family and friends to a special dinner to announce and celebrate our engagement! We felt really excited and anxious as weeks turned into days and days turned into hours, closing in onto the set dinner appointment time...

We barely had time to take a breath! From buying the thank-you gifts and cards, ironing out the dinner menu with the restaurant manager (many thanks to Jinji and Cynthia for their help in part-translation - the manager spoke Cantonese!), to getting C's hair done, and me trying to properly tie a tie! :P

Thankfully with the support and help from my bro, as well as our dear friends Jinji, Elana and many others... we were able to pull off the dinner event (plus a bunch of wild and interesting games that they - along with some of our dining guests - came up with) successfully! We enjoyed ourselves thoroughly and we certainly hope our guests found the night to be one to remember by!

Click to see E & C's online album for the night!
Many thanks to Dai Min for his great photos!
Another event awaits us this Saturday... of course, we are better prepared now!