Sometimes, all we need is just a bit bit of Passion

01012009, on the first day of the new year, I spent it playing soccer. From 1 to 5, on St. Wilfred's ground, my sweat slain that astro turf. And we kept it clean -- we thrashed our opponents.

Sometimes I feel really lucky that I had a band of friends that are so passionate about the sport, that we had spent countless weekends, Chinese new year's eves, Christmases, Hari Raya-s, Deepavali-s on soccer fields/courts, playing that most popular sport on Earth.

And they are very serious. When we lose, we curse and swear. When deadlocks occur -- and they do occur very often -- they got agitated: we haven't lose, but we cursed and swore.

But why so serious? Isn't this just another Sunday soccer team? Isn't the gathering itself meant more than winning the game?

From the mouth of my brother: "We must play serious, because if we don't, we'll lose, and every one in the team becomes slack. Once we submit to this fact, that we can't win anymore, then everything the team stood for before becomes insignificant. People will stop coming, our passion diminished. And then there wouldn't even be a gathering anymore."

How true. Sometimes, all we need is just a bit bit of passion in the stuff we do. Like that bit of nagging in your hamstring for you to move while you slough away in your office. That bit of adrenaline rush that we all sometimes felt when we are reminded that yes, there's going to be soccer this sunday morning. That bit of imagination that you are dribbling a ball while you side-stepped pedestrians on a crowded street.

Because its either that, or its shopping, eating, going to church/temple/mosque, and then back to work on monday.

Something I've never felt before

My skin, tingling, goose pimples bumping-- aching to touch. My head, airy, unable to focus, yet the mere sight of you makes it happy. I'm feeling.. edgy, anxious, excited, fearful, all rolled into one, as though the cherub doesn't wield bows and arrows but Thor's hammers-- electrifying, sense numbing, leave thy heart trembling.
And then the day ends, and the stomach pangs. My head, airy, unable to focus.
And then sadness. What's this feeling I've never felt before?

Introduction about myself

An excerpt from my introduction profile I had in my company's website:

...It’s amazing how time flies – at the time of writing, I’m riding into my ninth week in CSIT. Looking back, I tried to recollect why I joined CSIT in the first place: At the beginning, there was the job fair in NUS, and then the career seminar in School of Computing. And I saw that what it was is good. Entranced by a swashbuckling demonstration crafted by folks from here and there, and then thereafter meetings with them men and women who spoke of their work with pride and passion, I was hooked. Months later, my first job application landed me my first job. Of course the promise of work-life balance persuaded me a little, for in the midst of achieving work excellence, we do need to find time to meddle in life’s little indulgences.

Such as forgetting about our world whilst escaping into another with a real good book. Such as mocking our equatorial sun by chopping and splashing chlorinated water in your neighbourhood pool. Such as enjoying a good meal – doesn’t have to be break-your-piggy-banks expensive—with those few close ones. Such as catching up with three other khakis on a well-known board game that’s guaranteed to bring in fun and laughter, peace and joy. Such as sticking through thick and thins, for two hours each week, with a treble-award-winning soccer club. Such as playing the afore mentioned sport that’s most watched but seldom played in Singapore (most played is pool, really). Such as participating in death matches in alternate realities like GoW, MGS, NG, DotA and CoD. Such as dreaming to leave my foot prints on every inch of mother Earth...

Everyone dies, but no one ever really lives

This post is about freedom. Freedom as in what a twenty-something year old male Singaporean living in post 2000-millennium-celebrations really wanted. As opposed to William Wallace's grandiose-martyrdom that were depicted in his small and obscure postmortem flick, in which some barbaric leader of a small minority tribe incidentally uttered some unmemorable lines which goes on to inspire the totally mundane title of this post. As opposed to the type of Kopitiam chatters among taxi drivers whose idea of freedom, since money is really the root of all evil, is to remove money from the equation, or at least dream to settle the bill without looking at the bottom line. As opposed to a certain telcom's gimmicky slogan, whose adverts led me to believe that Singaporeans lives revolve solely around cell phones, TVs and the internet (wait a minute..) and to be free really means having another way to pay your bills.

My freedom is simpler: I just want to swim. I think about dabbling around the pool, mocking back at the equatorial sun whilst splashing chlorinated water, enjoying the view of PRC bikini- cladded babes, fantasizing I'm Michael Phelps-- doing frog style nonetheless, all these while listening to laughters of children. What else could a guy wish for? I'm working eight-thirty to six for the past five days, and now, I just want to swim. Without worries. Peace.

Then of course, something must have had happened that sparked off the creation of this post: I couldn't find my swimming trunks. And being a twenty something year old, male, means I cannot step into the pool. But c'mon, this is Singapore! Just a few hundred years ago, it's used to be a small sleepy fishing village. And the last time I checked, being an island really means being covered with water. Aren't we forgetting our roots here? No trunks mean no swimming in public pools? What nonsense is that? (And which smart Alec invented the swimming trunks anyway? Why do we need specialized cloth shaped exactly the same as our underwear?)

Stupid rules.

So my point is, freedom to me, really means doing away with stupid rules. Not in the sense of William Wallace's, whose era dictates that all Scottish with funny accents are exploitable. Not saying that freedom means free grub -- we all still need to be responsible for all the food we ate. But eradicate these stupid old rules! Like swimming trunks. Like formal wears. Like 7:30 schools. Like waking up in the morning. Like social stigmas. Like priority seats in MRTs. Like monday to friday work. Like education.

刁~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~曼!

Hao Hao wants to go Tioman!

Not because of grad trip!
Not because Pa just won 4D!
Not because he have to show off his Italy!

But for the 蓝天,白云,大海 and the horizon in-between..

Its either this, or its Zanzibar land..

RRoD

My Xbox360 is dead. On a Sunday evening. While playing Ninja Gaiden 2. *Sob* *Sob* Rest in peace, numero uno.

The Happening.. is not happening

Couldn't sleep and did this review of what I thought of the movie that I caught on 13th June, 2008, a Friday. With Hieu. At YCK. On its opening day. So here it goes!

When I hear the name M. Night Shyamalan, it conjures up memories of images of suspenseful tales from the crypts, scared folks whispering about something that defies comprehension, and then, some twist at the end of his movies.

Ghosts, super heroes, UFOs, neurotics hermits -- subjects Hollywood filmmakers discussed and abused repeatedly over and over again on their drawing boards. Yet Shyamalan's films inject a special uniqueness, presenting its audience with a perspective that's truly his and his only. Of course, not all of this uniqueness is good. Have you ever noticed how his actors are often much dressed down, mundane, and down to earth, like the average Joe or Jane on the streets? How his films are riddled with really dumb dialogs or superfluous sequences? That they are painfully slow at times and you just want to say "heck it, let's get to the twist"?

In one sentence, "The happening", Night's latest offering, is a dramatic flop. In this film, having seemingly ran out of subject matters, Night embodies the film's antagonist in the form of mother earth's population of bushes and trees. Yes, you heard it right -- the big bloody trees that are probably encircling around you right now, making that hiss hiss sound while some invisible breeze slithers through them. Having probably seen Al Gore's "An inconvenient truth" and probably after gorging a few pints of Vodka, as a unfortunate aftermath for us, Night penned his script. And he forgot to include the BLOODY TWIST! Or is the part where it was revealed that the real devil was mother nature a twist itself? That's one mother-fucking weak twist!

What's wrong with the film? For the most part, its pretty boring. Especially so when the main antagonist are some evolved evil trees that threatens to kill specifically humans only by swaying their branches as while some evil gale blows. See, powered by wind power. How environmentally friendly. This reminds me of an episode of South Park (the day before the day after tomorrow), the one where Randy, the geographer, warns the community about the fore coming of an ominous "it" that threatens to destroy humanity that reside on the wrong end of a event horizont that happens to shape after a gargantuan penis. Its just not frightening. Its almost funny for a horror scene.

The film truly have presented several interesting ways that instruct how one could incapacitate him/herself shall the need for it comes. Nevertheless, after that gruesome smorsgabord of awesomeness founded in the strings of Saw movies, Night's twisted mind seems less twisted after all.

Yet, somehow I still managed to savage something good about the film. There are scenes that pointed out how human beings had abused the environment and are oblivious about it -- and they are made very very subtle. It seems as though Night steered away from the path of being a nagging mother, purposefully putting pieces of biscuits and crumbs, hiding them clues against the back drops of the grand scheme of things, only wanting his audiences to realize the folly during their retrospection.

Like that hot dog quiz the statistician teacher had proposed to a screaming kid (even though it appeared rather incongruously in the story..):
If you are someone who like hot dogs. On some day, you approached a stand where it sells hot dog, each for 10 cents. Then, supposed the owner of the hot dog stand somehow decided to bamboozle you, doubling the prize of each hot dog for each day as you approached him to buy his hot dog. That is, the hot dog costs 10 cents today, 20 cents tomorrow, 40 cents the day after, 80 cents.. and so on and so forth. Based on intuition, how much do you need to pay for a hot dog after one month (28 days)? $10? Higher. $100? $1000? Higher, higher! You'll be surprised with the answer. Subtle, ingenious.

Like what he proposed us to do about the calamity at hands, that people should start living in smaller and smaller groups. That its no use escaping to rural areas once disasters strike, for calamities like these knows no geographical boundaries, nor are they going to differentiate who's right and who's wrong. In the show, the old man who talks to plants though they are his own child, who built an expensive tent to house his precious, who bides his plants goodbye before leaving for safer grounds, still ultimately suffered a tragic end.

Like how he insinuates human beings are just getting what we deserved with a loud signboard that says "Model house: You deserves this!" -- as consumerism led us to pursue stuffs that are really hollow plastics and emotionless entities; as we had bargained all that we belong with a piece of that wonderful mother nature; that we, inhabitants of earth, had thought that we gained the better end of the deal, that all of these must had came free and without consequences, when the reality is not so kind.

But on the whole a really bad movie. Spoiled not only by a cast full of mis-casted characters (Mark Wahlberg as a really insincere science teacher; an inept Zooey Deschanel whom I must questioned her acting skills), the film's ultimate flaw is the lack of a congruent story line to hook the audiences' attention, as well as.. OK let's face it, no one is to be scared by some swaying trees and those seemingly benign whooshing winds. Lastly, no twist!

Now when I hear the name M. Night Shyamalan, I'd think twice before approaching his films. Not on opening days, definitely. This reminds me of what WWE's The Great Khali's valet Daivari had praised about the latter's achievements:

"The Great Khali has stared into the abyss, and the Earth has trembled at his Gaze. The Great Khali has wrestled the Royal Bengal Tiger and The Great Khali is from the Punjab Jungles of India. The Great Khali ranks with the likes of Mother Teresa, Ghandi, Bhagat Singh, Ravishankar, and M. Night Shyamalan!"

Yes, yes, buckle up for your next show, or you will be under the Great Khali.

JJ's RT meter: 3/10. OOO*******