When you're out of the blue and into the black

好久没有尝试写华文，觉得自己好像不太懂得怎么表达自己。可是我一向来都喜欢在电脑或手机输入华文字。越写越过瘾！而且，华文字体非常整齐，每一个字占据的位子都是一样的。所谓chinese characters，华文字体看起来果然很有特色！

Try to kill it all away but I remember everything

Watched Here, and wished the fictitious Island Hospital was for real. Looked like a wonderful sanctuary, and if I were there, I wouldn't wanna be out here. Some of the patients choose not to leave, citing reasons like they can't be "out here", or "amor fati", which translates to love of fate, not wanting to change a thing about the state they are in. The hospital also uses a form of video therapy to help patients revisit their breaking point to explore an alternative way to react. As my favourite character Valentino points out, life can only be understood backwards, yet it has to be lived forward. Great use of sound in the movie (George Chua), and a beautiful song by 刘文正, 我找到自己 (I've found myself) at the end.

You can plan a pretty picnic but you can't predict the weather

At a field, a white rabbit with orange patches caught my eye. It was so pretty! I'd not seen a rabbit like this before, and wanted to take a picture of it. But as I prepared my camera, the rabbit went into a hole. It soon reappeared but quickly made its way to the middle of the field, away from me. Not contented, I looked at the clouds above and tried to find an interesting spot to take a picture of, but it was not the same. Clouds are always above us, lovely as they are, but you only see a rabbit like this once.

I know a mouse, and he hasn't got a house

What if I was like The Man From Earth? But better, to stay put at 25 instead of 35. The Girl From Earth! Hmm...

God Only Knows

Mrs Robinson says (11:52):
wat is up with pet sounds?
Mrs Robinson says (11:52):
why is the album titled pet sounds?
Mrs Robinson says (11:52):
and are those dogs on the album cover?
Mrs Robinson says (11:52):
are the songs in there abt pets?
Mrs Robinson says (11:52):
is caroline a dog?
Andrew says (11:53):
its titled pet sounds as a tribute to phil spector

Saved By Old Times

Finally had time to think about the year that went by. Among the many things I failed to keep track of, here's something I actually did.

The 15 best films I saw in 2008 (in no particular order)

1. Persepolis
2. Perfume: Story Of A Murderer
3. The Diving Bell And The Butterfly
4. Tears Of The Black Tiger
5. Picnic At Hanging Rock
6. Help Me Eros
7. Goodbye Dragon Inn
8. Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter And Spring Again
9. Knife In The Water
10. Harmful Insect
11. Paranoid Park
12. No Country For Old Men
13. Tony Takitani
14. Into The Wild
15. What Time Is It There?

I'd originally wanted to cut the list off at 10, but I could hardly choose 1 between the last 6, so I cheated and extended the list.

Two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl

Abdominal angina is a condition that follows the first definition in that the sufferer typically has attacks of abdominal pain. This is not the stomach ache that all of us have suffered from occasionally. It is a dull, gnawing or cramping pain typically felt in the upper or middle portions of the abdomen. The pain usually begins 10 to 30 min after eating, and gradually increases until it reaches a plateau and then slowly decreases over one to three hours. As the condition worsens, the pain increases in frequency and severity so that the patient progressively reduces meal size and/or avoids eating. As a consequence, the person loses weight.

Abdominal angina and angina pectoris involve different organs but have the same underlying cause. In abdominal angina it is the stomach and intestines (rather than the heart) which are temporarily deprived of adequate amounts of blood to perform their jobs optimally. This poor circulation is almost always caused by hardening of the arteries, a condition doctors call arteriosclerosis, although rarely there are other causative factors.

The sufferer and the illness have finally found each other, after so many years.

Like an alarm of impending doom

I could have expected too much from the Death Cab gig. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't awesome either, like how concerts ought to be. Despite a nice entrance (with chants and stuff), they didn't begin their set with strong tracks. (If i remember correctly they opened with Bixby Canyon Bridge) I think it was only after the third song that they addressed the audience properly. Ben Gibbard went something like "Hello Singapore. We're Death Cab For Cutie from Seattle, Washington," and everyone broke into applause and cheers. Can't remember what else was said but it wasn't anything memorable. At some point later he also announced that they had a new album called Narrow Stairs. I wished they would stop stating the obvious, and just be a bit funnier. He asked the people "Do you like love songs? Here's a love song, for you", before breaking into I Will Follow You Into The Dark. Have to say i found that kinda cheesy. What a nice, supportive crowd though, screaming and singing along. Some people were dancing, even to slow songs. They did not play Death Of An Interior Decorator, but included many other mandatory songs in their set, such as Title And Registration, The New Year (which i don't like), The Sound Of Settling, Expo '86, Tiny Vessels and Transatlanticism. They played quite a bit off Narrow Stairs. I Will Possess Your Heart was perfect showoff time for the bassist. They played Cath... No Sunlight and Long Division too. I especially enjoyed it when they played Grapevine Fires (my favourite track there). It was enjoyable enough, just that it lacked an element of surprise. Many times they played songs from the same album one after another, and Transatlanticism actually came right after Tiny Vessels, just like on the album. And their delivery was not very different from what you can hear on your ipod. Didn't feel it was worth paying $111 for. $58 would have felt just right.

Here we come, Mister Airplane

I found out there was a team at the Museum Heritage Quest by the name of WHY SO SERIOUS. Hahaha!

Lately i've been hit by a delayed bubble tea craze, and i'm taking this obsession to a different level. On Monday i had bubble tea 3 times! A green apple green tea (my current fave), a mango red tea (quite nice), and a grape green tea (not bad). I'm still trying to explore other options on the menu. Yesterday i had peach milk tea (nice!) and today a regular milk tea with pearls (quite nice). Only thing that's missing is Vitamin C. Sweettalk! Yeah!

Time makes you bolder

On Friday, we took part in the Flight Of The Night Owl Heritage Quest at the museum. Pong, Fiona, Mel, Kent and me. Mel thought up our group name - The Running Jellylegs. How appropriate. Must say it was a lot of fun racing through all the museums and darting across roads to get from National History Museum to the Singapore Art Museum to some old gates of RGS that are now at some part of SMU (never paid those gates any attention) to the Hill Street Fire Station to the stamps museum to the Asian Civilisations Museum to the Peranakan Museum to the Lim Bo Seng War Memorial Site to some cats on the bridge near Fullerton to St Andrew's Cathedral to CHIJMES and back to where we started. Somewhere in between we had to go to MICA and then to River Valley Road and throw muddy bean bags at another team while trying not to get hit. A lot of teams were very hardcore. They dressed in sports attire and even brought maps. Hahaha. Haven't been so healthy on a Friday night since fuck knows when. Muscles i forgot i had are still aching.

Thought of you as everything I've had but couldn't keep

Lee Kang Sheng is back with his second directorial effort, "Help Me Eros", after blowing minds with "Bu Jian" (aka "The Missing") in 2003. This time, he plays the lead again (giving it an even more Tsai Ming Liang feel). Not surprisingly, "Help Me Eros" is made in that distinct style that people have come to know Tsai and Lee for - subdued, grim, with minimal dialogue and plenty of sex.

Revolving round the character of Ah Jie, a closet pothead (he grows the plants in his closet) who has lost everything when the stocks market crashed. He spends his time at home smoking up and calling a suicide helpline where he grows emotionally attached to his counsellor, Chyi. He hasn't met Chyi and has no idea she's overweight, but he projects his fantasy of Chyi on Shin, the new betel nut girl below his apartment. Ah Jie and Shin crossed paths one night the two spent seeking thrills in Ah Jie's former sports car, racing down the streets and getting smashed. Their relationship quickly becomes highly sexual (viewers are treated to scenes of their various explicit and theatrical sexual positions - very LOL). As his situation becomes more critical, Ah Jie begins selling his designer furniture for living expenses and finally leaving it to chance by buying a lot of lottery tickets. While the reality of his life plunges into a downward spiral, his marijuana plants offer him a glimmer of hope, where he indulges in his fantasy and his sexual escapades with a few other betel nut girls, portrayed in a few enthralling dreamlike sequences in which the film glorifies the raunchy culture associated with Taiwan’s streets at night.

"Help Me Eros" is about desperation, and the plea for help. This is shown right from the start with subplots that parallel this. In the opening scene, a cooking show is playing on Ah Jie's TV, in which the chef demonstrates the gutting and scaling of a carp, for an exotic dish named "Carp Jumps Over The Wall". It becomes clear that the carp will be served live. The TV presenter then in good humour, takes it upon himself to express the carp's fear and plea to escape its fate, while Ah Jie watches on, visibly disturbed. Chyi's character too, is quietly desperate and dejected.

This story is comparatively easy to understand and relate to, and Lee Kang Sheng's depiction of a stoner is brilliant. He does not overact his altered state like most other movies do. There is also the trademark offbeat humour that is used effectively in this film, as well as thought-provoking moments and bizarre situations. I love how the ending and the metaphor which the film uses to tell it. It seems to lend sympathy to the anti-hero by romanticizing the events.

Word of caution. This movie is an acquired taste. Those who don't like it might find it too cheesy, too exploitative (unnecessary prolonged sex scenes) and too crass. You have been warned.

I thought i had it all figured out but look who got it wrong

I think IDM could have used a better name. Labelling a type of music as "intelligent" just seems stupid. Would a truly noble person call himself or herself "noble"?