2006 July | Chatter Of The Squirrel

Clerks 2

July 30, 2006 on 4:03 pm | In Movies | No Comments

My deepest apologies to Kevin Smith.

I have no choice but to download a cam recording of Clerks 2 via BitTorrent. There’s no freaking way that any of his movies will hit the local theatres. So, I’m not really denying him of any revenue.

But he shouldn’t be worried. The low budget flick easily recovered production and marketing cost in its opening weekend’s take of 11 million dollars.

Clerks began Kevin’s film making career more than 10yrs ago, and this time, he returned to his original characters: Dante Hicks and Randal Graves, the infamous clerks.

Randal has burnt down the beloved QuickStop. The two now works at a burger joint, finding new ways to torment customers, and fans of Lord of the Rings.

“Those f*cking hobbit movies were boring as hell. All it was was a bunch of people walking. Three movies of people walking to a f*cking volcano …The f*cking trees walked in those movies.”

Dante finally finds love, and is about to move to Florida with his fiance. Randal arranges a ’stag’ party for Dante’s last day, with live interspecies erotica.

There are plenty of interesting actors in the flick. Kevin is in as Silent Bob. Jason Mewes finally kicked his drug habit, and is back as Jay (we get to see some frontal nudity). Kevin’s wife is in (she also flashed the camera). Ben Affleck (Shannon in Mallrats, Holden in Chasing Amy, Bartleby in Dogma). Jason Lee (Brodie in Mallrats, Banky in Chasing Amy). Rosario Dawson (who is Gail in Sin City).

Not as funny as the original Clerks. But it’s fun to see the crew back together.

Dead Man’s Chest

July 30, 2006 on 4:00 pm | In Movies | No Comments

A must watch movie if you’re a young boy who loves the fantasy of swashbuckling pirates.

Orlando Bloom makes an excellent Guybrush Threepwood… no wait… Will Turner. Well, same difference. Young blonde man becomes a mighty pirate and marries the beautiful governor’s daughter… Tell me there is no resemblance to Guybrush!

And there’s more than a haunting resemblance between Davy Jones and the zombie pirate LeChuck and his voodoo beard.

Then there’s the voodoo queen who sends Guybrush on his quests? And the adorable cannibals.

It’s obviously derivative of LucasArt’s most successful Monkey Island series of games! Adored those games in my younger days! I’m just kinda surprised that no one shouted, “You fight like a milkmaid!” during the swordplay sequences.

Back to the movie… if you love pirates, you’ll enjoy the ride.

If you don’t, then it’s like flying coach, and squeezed between two fat ladies with BO. You just can’t wait for it to end.

Liked Jack Sparrow. Liked the comedic stunts, especially the pole-vault, and the hamster-wheel sequences.

The plot is dumb. But you’re watching a pirate movie, what were you expecting?!

Also learnt how to play Liar’s Dice.

–”Oh yeah, you fight like a cow!“–

Old Classmates

July 23, 2006 on 4:00 pm | In Me! | No Comments

Had lunch with some classmates from those distant days of Brunei.

These were people I never even bothered to talk to when we were primary classmates in Chung Hwa, BSB.

And after moving on to another school in secondary, I had no contact with these ex-classmates… Except the one time I went back to Chung Hwa in sec 3, representing St. Andrew’s for the National Science Quiz, and went to trounce my old school. Very very soundly, I’m afraid.

Then a couple of years ago, via Friendster and MSN… somehow I got back in touch with a couple of old friends. And this trip to Singapore, I made it part of my agenda to catch hold of those few who have moved to Singapore in these long intervening years.

Caught up with Jessica Siong (a girl I remembered sitting next to in pri 5, I think), Chee Min (a face I remember from the yearbook, but I don’t even remember ever having spoken to her in class), JeeYung (name is familiar, but no remarkable memory), and FuXiang (unknown to me, but was from ChungHwa too).

Some of these faces, I’ve not seen in 18years…

Spent hours talking while eating at New York New York, a new place at City Link. Food was so so.

Right after lunch, I then had to head to my tea appointment with Karen and young Daniel at Borders.

After tea, it was off to Kallang, where Peggy was having a crab party for a number of friends. Was a good dinner of excellent crabs with excellent company.

Swimming at Suntec City

July 22, 2006 on 3:57 pm | In Me! | No Comments

Breakfast with Ben. After which, he had a minor emergency at his workplace to attend.

Which allowed me to make a brunch appointment, as Peggy was so kind to pencil me in for a 1-2hrs audience amidst her busy weekend schedule. She was meeting some gym friends for a swim later.

And as it happened… I had my trunks and goggles with me… Me and my Camelbak, we’re always prepared. (Maybe I’ll introduce my RimRunner one of these days.)

There’s a quiet swimming pool secreted away in one corner of Suntec City, available to Planet Fitness members. I managed to sneak in with them, and had a good 15 laps around the pool. Used to swim daily a few years ago when I was staying at an apartment with pool facilities. Miss the swimming a lot.

Then, a heavy tea, before Peggy had a seminar to be at.

I had a bit of time to kill before meeting up with Ben, SimLoong and Ravinder for dinner. So popped over to Paradigm Infinitum at Midpoint Orchard. Picked up two blisters of Trenchers that a friend asked me to get. Also found a good pin-vise and some Tamiya epoxy putty. Nice!

It’s the last days of the Great Singapore Sale, and I glimpsed a newspaper ad that Borders was doing a 20% off store-wide discount. Couldn’t resist. Although I’m able to get nearly everything I want to read off the net already, there’s still a few things I’ve not been able to find. Tried to look for Story by Robert McKee, but I was out of luck… It’ll cost RM140 at the Borders back in KL…

Dinner at Plaza Singapura. With almost all the Hanoi group. And appropriately, we had Vietnamese cuisine. We got the Buy 2 Get 1 Free set meal courtesy of HSBC creditcard. Very cool. But the pig trotters… Bah, can never compare to Sibu.

After dinner entertainment, we adjourned to SimLoong’s new pad, moved in just this month. Pretty sweet digs. Very nice pool. Very nice big screen LCD TV.

Quite forgot to check out his SGD$1500 vacuum cleaner. That’s like, half the price of my car! On a vacuum cleaner!

Weekend Trip to Singapore

July 21, 2006 on 3:50 pm | In Me! | No Comments

Had a free weekend… …and several long procrastinated promises to visit Singapore… Some primary school mates want to meet up. And a bloke wants to show me his new pad. Being the obliging person that I am…. Took a bus down to Singapore, and bunked with Ben.