51st Merdeka

Well, this is quite a milestone for me, considering that 31st August is now re-established as my public holiday..haha. I purposely wake up earlier today to watch the Perarakan Merdeka because its like eight years since I watched it! For the previous 8 years, 31st August is a school day for me, actually, half school day because 1st September is Teacher's Day at the country down south. But still, I would miss the morning Perarakan because need to report to school. It certainly brings back memories when I was a child and where my grandma would excitingly point the screen and ask me to find my uncle (who's with the Malaysian air force) in the marching soldier contingent..haha. Hearing some old patriotic songs over the TV gives me a sense of nostalgia. Sudirman's "Tanggal 31" is just classic :)

There's a general feeling among Malaysians though that there's no festive mood for the 51st celebration. It's been overshadowed by so many things - Euro 2008, Olympics, rising oil prices, Saifuls, Permatang Pauh, and Crossovers. Even Pak Lah and Najib don't look to be in a celebratory mood and they looked to be darn bored in the parade.

My favourite part for the perarakan has always being the march-past where I get to see the beautiful costumes of the participants, decorated trailers and those public display of heavy armaments. The march past in Malaysia is more of a massive scale as compared to the south. You get even private sectors and representatives from banks marching in..haha. Btw, the Yang-di Pertuan Agong looks quite fierce and intimidating with his military garb, especially when he's younger than the two ministers siting beside him. I thought he would wear the traditional garb like the previous Agongs though.

Hmmm..one thing I've noticed is that there's easily 10 to 20 marching brass bands participating in the march past. What fascinates me is that, how did they co-ordinate the music and timing with each other? And also, every public civil sector from the fireman/bomba to the police and the three divisions of the armed forces all have their own brass bands! Woah, are they part of the staff who play music in their past times or are they recruited just to play music? Interesting observation..haha. Ohhh..and one more thing, I'm surprised that the Malaysian Air-force actually owns F-18 Hornet fighter jets. I've always thought they'll only use Soviet equipments in the form of MiG fighters. Anyways, they were displaying the squadron flyover as the air force troops and airborne rangers march on the ground. The Malaysian air-force doesn't have F-16s like the southern country though..haha, since Malaysia is using the MiG 29 instead.

Oh well, I'm going back to uni tonite. Hopefully I won't encounter another snoring king beside me again on the bus..haha =p

Returning back to uni soon

The semester breaks are ending in a few days time. In a way, I'm kinda glad to be back at uni because it's freaking boring here in Taiping! Haha..cos the old folks always go to the same coffeeshop to makan (the food's not that good there too) and its driving me nuts. Personal entertainment wise, there's a lot to do in the form of Astro, Internet and guitar playing but there's no interaction with youths at my age since Taiping's an old folk's town. I'm so going to equip myself with driving skills and a car the next time I'm in that place.

I planned to go back on 1st September morning but all the tickets are sold out already. Fortunately, I managed to secure an earlier time at 31st August night to prevent myself from ending going back at 2nd September. So, I 'm quite relieved at not missing class. Hopefully the KTM train will start cracking when I reach Seremban at 5.30am in the morning..haha.

Hmmm..mixed feelings though over the products of the holidays. I did 10% ELS, 30% contract, 35% constitutional and 0% criminal law revision. I'm going to be so dead when the semester starts again..haha. And certain things just turn out for the worst, and I don't know what to say about it. I'm just confused, baffled and don't know why it turned out that way. But that's life. Shit happens and one has to bite the dust no matter how bitter it is. Looking on the positive side, I came to uni having nothing, so I'll return back having nothing also.

Hmmm..I do hope for a couple of things to happen in Semester 2. I'll be extremely curious and excited indeed who would be coming in for the September batch. This new batch and next year's January batch are vital folks because they are the ones gonna be following my batch to the UK at the same time. Who knows, some of them will end up being my classmates. And yea, I wish there would be some consistent bloggers among the new batch too. It's shitty being the only guy in my batch to blog. Lastly, I wanna get introduced to rockers! Electric guitarists and bassists especially! Rock drummer Stan thinks its time to get some rocking band gig act going and it's gonna be really cool if those electric guitarist or bassists happen to be in the September batch. And more people with decent footy football knowledge too please...

Btw, happy birthday to someone too. God bless you =)

Through the lens of history

Mhhhmm..I'm going to try to describe my current life situation using historical jargons, so only I will understand the meaning and the code behind them..haha. Since Malaysia's Merdeka is so near, I'll use the example of independence in Southeast Asia.

The concept of independence is there but different Southeast Asian states acquired it differently. Let's pick Indonesia for example where they actually had to fight a war against the Dutch to gain their independence. In the 1960s, Indonesia don't seem to be very well pleased with Malaysia because Malaya did not need to fight or struggle violently in a war for independence. It seemed unfair for them. It was handed on a silver platter and Tunku just flew over the London and amended a couple of points in the Reid Commission report. Thousands of Indonesians died trying to gain independence for their country while Malaysia had it easy with just with a snap. The Philippines had it easy too, and the Americans automatically grant them without the need to fight. Let's just say, I emphatise with the Indonesians' perception after going through certain sequence of events. And if you think that the Indonesians had it the worst, there's another country which had more shit while trying to achieve independence - Vietnam. They've won the war against the French and yet the Geneva convention had been unkind to them. Worst, they had to have the Americans to deal with afterthat. They were the winners in the 1950s but it took another few years of brutal wars before Vietnam is united. Same concept but everyone achieved it differently because each of them received different colonial masters. Some had to die for it but others received it without a drop of blood spilled.

The Cold War started off with a big bang and had some combustible face-off between the two superpowers. There's the Berlin Blockade and the Cuban Missile Crisis which scared the world to its knees. But right now, there's this detente period which I don't know will last for how long. I'm certainly hoping that there'll be a "Reagan-fied" moment where the second phase of Cold War will be ignited and where it's gonna be even more hot than the first phase. Until Reagan appears, the detente not's going to change. So, Reagan, please appear and shake the world again.

Equipping to read law

Haha..I was inspired to write this entry by a friend of mine who put out a proposition that science students are more equipped to read law than arts students. That's a really surprising viewpoint for me because I've always held that arts students are way more advantageous in reading law. First of all, there needs to be geographical and definition clarification before I proceed. When I mean Arts, its pre-university (A Levels or STPM). And I'm a Malaysian who studied in Singapore for my O and A Levels, and so, my A Levels Arts course is conducted in English. The situation in Malaysia is different though, STPM is where Arts are conducted in Malay while Science is in English unless the person does A Levels in private institutions. I'll address stuff on both parts of the peninsula..haha. Btw Joann, if u're reading this, u can also refer to this entry where I point out how my two favourite A Level subjects helped me very much in reading law.

Generally, being Asian countries, it's utterly impossible to run from the labelling that Arts students are the weaker bunch and those that graduate from it are..well..no where to go..haha. So, in Singapore, Arts in A levels has an easier cut-off point to get into than Science. I believe parents on both sides of the causeway would nag their children to get into and do well in Maths or Science. But I beg to differ that there are some students who chose Arts by choice because it's their passion and interest despite having the ability to do science. And many a times, these are also the same bunch of people who will reap the maximum benefits from studying Arts and possess really some vital skills such as critical thinking and creativity as compared to mindless grinding and practicing sums for Science.

Ahahaha, this may be a bit bias, but don't flame me. I'm speaking as a pure Arts student observing Science students and the studying style in general and of course, there will always be some who don't fit inside my generalization. First of all, science students are subjected to the same monotonous drill of sucking up the facts, memorise, practice and execute what you have just implanted in the brain. They can't dispute about Newton's law, matrices sequences or why certain chemicals just turns out that way. Students just take the reasoning as it is given from the text book and there are no alternative ways to think about it. So, it's equally fascinating to Science students that in Law, there are no right or wrong answers! In Maths and Science, they will ALWAYS be a definite answer. You can't say 2+2 maybe equals to four or it could mean something else. It is four and there are no other answers. You can't start arguing that 2+2=5 because it's impossible to do so. In exams, you are either right or wrong. There's no maybe, mid-way or out of the box answer you can give. This simple foundation speaks in general and shapes the way Science students think and approach matters in the real world and this results in the production of some rather rigid, boring and box-minded individual.

On the other hand, Arts students are already taught to be argumentative because the nature of their subjects demand them to be so. They need to write essays expressing out their thoughts. History for example, is NOT memorising dates and recounting them. That's blasting out "Chronicles". History is a subject of picking out points and arguing about subject matters. It's questions like "Is America justified in exploding the atomic bomb in Japan?" and "Which factor is most important in ending the Cold War" rather than when/what happened on a particular date. There are many dates and events in World War II for example, but the historian learns to pick the important ones to strengthen his argument and analysis. And every person has got different ways to argue about the topic and they are all equally permissible way to approach the subjects. In English Literature, students learn to analyse double meanings behind the words, language features such as metaphors, personification and ironies and at the same time, learn about life lessons regarding human nature from the authors and poets. For exams, students are stretched really to the limits in producing a creative critical analysis of what they read if they wanna score an A and not just literally recount the novel like a comprehension passage. Thus, Arts students would not be surprised on the way the reading of law is being approached. They have the critical thinking skills and can think really more subjectively because their academics encourages them to think out of the box. And they certainly don't fear the amount of words that they need to go through for law because they've being doing it all the time already.

The thing is that in terms of general knowledge and language skills, I'm of the opinion that Arts students are better than Science students. The scope which Arts students had to cover is very wide but Science students are very limited to the scope that they had to focus on. Not only that, Arts exams are way harder than Science exams and not the other way round. It's easy to pass Arts exams but to score an A is never a guarantee at all because it all depends on the skill and talent. For Science, it's a matter of getting hardworking and start practicing and grinding till you pop. I've seen many Science students who failed badly initially but easily scored all As in the finals because, well, they just had to study what is required..simple as that. For Arts, it points down on whether the person have the flair or none at all. The person can be a bull in practicing essay after essays but still fail in the end because he just doesn't have that creative edge. And another person could do it effortlessly in producing top-quality essays without studying half as hard as the bull person. This sounds a bit cruel, but any tom, dick or harry can actually do Maths and Science if he sits down and practice diligently on the facts and experiments but for Arts, not everybody can do and be well-versed in Arts even if he/she wants to. It's either you have it or you don't.

Hmmm..I'm in the opinion that Arts courses in Malaysia should really be restructured because they don't encourage that much thinking. I kinda understand why many Malaysian students loath Sejarah because it's all chronicles and memorisation! This gives them all the wrong perception about History. Plus, the scope of Sejarah in Malaysia is too narrow and doesn't focus on important practical knowledge such as World War II and most importantly, the Cold War which has shaped world politics for the 50 over years. It's really shocking if more than half of the graduating batch from Malaysian high schools don't even know who Joseph Stalin is. Hopefully there will be education reforms on the Sejarah syllabus. Well, Singapore is quite well-developed in the teaching of Arts and Humanities but sadly, there are very few who value the uniqueness and sheer talent that is involved in there. Most of the resources and attention are always provided for Science students and Arts students will always be regarded as the lousier lot. Unfortunately also, most Art students in Singapore end up as recycled materials in the forms of teachers especially if they don't do maths.

In any case, studying Arts has been really a joy. In my O Levels, it was such a torture to study and practice and practice my Maths and Science. The process of learning is just gone and it's just slavery. But for my pure Arts course in A Levels, I get to learn about the process of learning and developed my thinking in many ways unimaginable. You'll never see life in the same way as the masses once you've study arts and make full use of the skills obtain from there.

Yup, hopefully this post would give some new insights regarding pure arts students (and I'm proud to be one of them!) plus change a few minds =p

Anwar returns to Parliament

26th August could very well be a landmark historical date for Malaysia in the future - It was the day Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim is voted back into Parliament, 10 years after his exile. He won by an even bigger majority than his wife's in his constituency of Permatang Pauh, 15 671 majority to be precise. The English daily today reads "Anwar becomes MP". Well, many would wonder if MP would get reversed to PM by 16th September. A decade ago, Anwar would be sitting at the Parliament front row, waiting to be PM and presently, he's sitting at the front row but opposite side, and still waiting to be PM.

I think BN had already expected him to win and it's just formality that they place someone there to challenge him. So, it's no surprise for them and they surely have one or two dirty tricks lined up for Anwar.

Fletch the brave Scot

Darren Fletcher wheels away in celebration after scoring his goal

Manchester United obtained their first victory of the 08/09 season with a 1-0 victory over Portsmouth at Fratton Park. It's a messy goal but a win is a win. United controlled most of the game with 60%++ possession by the first half. It's nice to see Tevez back leading at the front line and to see him twisting and turning while dribbling the ball. The kind of through passes which Man Utd did in slicing through the defence were awesome, but there was still a general feeling that there was no one player to pull the trigger. For both games consecutive, you see one man who wants to take the job, it's Darren Fletcher! Haha, of all people and I guess that playing in Ronaldo's position certainly rub some scoring aura on him and now he's scored 2 goals out of 2 games..lol. He's on his way to become an Old Trafford "legend"..haha. Jokes aside, it's really good work ethics from Fletcher in working hard and covering up the empty spaces in counterattacking cos many a times, Rooney and Tevez were more content in passing the balls around. It's not a bad thing on unselfish play but to put the ball into the net, there needs to be the killer instinct. And the person who had that instinct was Ronaldo, because he stepped up to be the marksman while the entire United squad is geared to provide him with the assist. His adoration from fans may be reduced in Old Trafford but his absence is certainly felt. Kudos to Anderson in returning to play despite a hectic Olympic schedule but he needs to improve on his targetting..haha.

The Berbatov transfer saga is stretching to the last days and hours of the transfer window. Spurs want to sell but remain adamant in the price tag of 30 million. They wanna rip Man Utd off like how they rip the price on Carrick. We'll see if Ferguson would bow down to such demands or whether he'll finally lose his patience and looks elsewhere. Everyone is still speculating on who else is on Fergie's mind.

Remembering Beijing 2008

It's always saddening to see great sporting events coming to an end in the closing ceremony. In any case, it's being an action-packed Olympics in Beijing with several memorable points and controversies. Here are some of the stuff which characterizes the games in China.

1. During the opening ceremony, it was revealed that Lin Miao Ke, the 9 year-old girl who was singing "Ode to the Motherland", was actually lip-syncing. The voice did not belong her but to another 7-year-old girl, Yang Peiyi. It seems that some members in the Politburo and the committee felt that Peiyi was too chubby, had broken teeth and not cute enough. On the other hand, Miaoke had the looks but not the voice. The musical director chillingly puts out the criteria, "The child on camera should be flawless in image, internal feeling and expression." The organisers simply put out that the arrangement was done for the good of the nation. It certainly drew furious response from all over the globe and some have seen that the image branding consumerism has even invaded into the innocent world of children.

2. Another point that was revealed was that the fireworks scene at the opening ceremony was digitally enhanced by computer generated effects for the TV viewers. So, some of the fireworks effects were pixellated stuff and not really seen by those at the stadium. The strange thing was that famed director Zhang Yimou gave the ok button for such "modification".

3. Michael Phelps became an American and Olympic swimming legend after achieving an astounding 8 gold medals in Beijing, bringing his career total to a record 14 gold medals, the most earned by any Olympian athlete. One of his most memorable swims in Beijing was when he won the Gold in the 100 m butterfly by 0.01 seconds! Gosh, he seriously made 0.01 seconds so valuable and the silver medalist would reflect heavily on that..lol. Michael Phelps smash several world Records in his swimming campaign in Beijing and he is now the current holder of seven world records in swimming.

4. Usain Bolt became the fastest man on Earth when he won Gold in both the 100m and 200m sprints and breaking both World Records at the same time. His 100m was a highlight because apparently, he actually slowed down by looking behind and thumping his chest as he crossed the finishing. Even so, he still managed to get the Gold and break the record. Some criticized him as being a showoff while others say its a waste because he could have stretched the world record further. Nevertheless, the Lightning Bolt went on to set another World Record and gold medal with the 4x100m relay team.

5. China's popular champion hurdler Liu Xiang limps out before he got the first hurdle. He subsequently withdrew from the competition citing an injury problem, much to the shock and tears of the entire stadium. Liu Xiang had somewhat propelled himself as a cult figure in China's sporting arena and endorsing countless number of advertisments. The weight of the entire nation of 1 billion people was on his shoulders and many had expected him to retain his title from Athens. Alas, it was not to be and his withdrawal remained an issue of debate among the Chinese.

6. Moment of madenness in taekwando as Cuba's Valodia Matos lands a kick On Swedish referee Chakir Chelbat in anger after being disqualified. The poor referee needed to get stitches on his lips for the deliberate attack. Needless to say, both Matos and his coach were banned for life from any future taekwando competition.

7. Singapore won her first Olympic medal after 48 years of waiting.

8. Lee Chong Wei brought glory to Malaysia when he won the silver medal for badminton singles. =)

The closing ceremony was quite nice and David Beckham made an appearance..lol. Great electric guitar stuff also from Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page. Haha, the transforming London bus in the stadium was rather interesting. So, as we came to the end of one Olympic, we say hello to another in 4 years time, at London 2012.

The underdog's weekend

For Premier League football, it's a shocking weekend. Lots of unexpected results. First of all the new boys in the block are showing that they are no pushovers. West Brom aside, Stoke and Hull achieved some remarkable feat as they get the points. Hull got the one point right in front of the Rovers homeground while Stoke produced a shocking 3-2 victory over Aston Villa right at their home ground. Relegation candidates like Fulham and Sunderland recorded some shocking results too. The "Gooners" Arsenal fans were left fuming after watching their side lost 0-1 to Fulham at Craven cottage. The finishing and passing was not there and of all teams, they had to loose to noobie Fulham. The lost points will come back to haunt them in the future.

Oh dear, Oh dear! What in the *toot* is Tottenham doing? A team that is regarded to have a superb chance to break into the top four has lost two out of two of the opening games and currently have ZERO points. Make it three losses soon because they are facing Chelsea next. Hmm, Spurs looked to be a deceiving disappointing side yet again as highlighted by a similiar facade around two seasons ago. The fellows who scored against Tottenham happened to be Man Utd and Liverpool's rejects in the form of Richardson and Cisse...haha. Sunderland certainly looks impressive and I have to say Roy Keane had made some shrewd transfer buys. If they can continue this form, I would back them for a middle-table finish.

Liverpool looked also to be another side in danger of being screwed by the underdogs. When Mido placed Boro 1-0 up in Anfield, the Kop is absolutely stunned. It looked to be some famous victory for Southgate but a stroke of luck for Liverpool when Carragher's thunderous strike was deflected off Pogagetz into the goal. Well, Boro should at least deserve a draw for their efforts but fate is cruel to them when super captain Gerrard saves Liverpool yet again with his wonderful shot to give the Reds three points. Gah, Liverpool had been playing shittily but still they get the maximum 6 points. Chelsea's match was concluded an hour ago and Wigan did put up a nice defence to prevent a Chelsea rampage. It was enough to seal Chelsea's victory with Deco's magical free kick. Gosh, Deco is definitely the buy of the season. Two goals out of two matches. Well, hopefully Man Utd gets the results tomorrow. Fratton Park has proven time and time again to be the Achilles Heel of Man Utd over the last couple of seasons.

Argentina gets gold for Olympic footy

Lionel Messi and Sergio Aguero celebrate with their gold medals in Beijing

Argentina overcame a resilient Nigerian side to defend their title as Olympic football champions. Of course, Olympic football finals is miles away from the quality in the World Cup because teams are only allowed to field under-23 players and one or two senior ones. This Olympic Argentina side is remarkable in that almost half of its first-eleven squad contains literally famous big names despite being an Olympic side. They include Lionel Messi, Sergio Aguero, Javier Mascherano, Riquelme, Fernando Gago. Not only that, their most memorable performance has got to be the one when they swept Brazil 3-0 aside in the semis. Messi (born in 1987) and Aguero (born in 1988) are only 1 or 2 years older than me and they are already so talented plus are consistently starting in the first eleven for their clubs! Messi especially is in the process of becoming a worldwide phenomenal and the entire stadium literally roared when his name was called out.

It was an extremely hot day to play footy and the temperature was between 32 degrees to a whopping 42! It's bad to play 6 games in 2 weeks and to play your final at 12 in the afternoon is just stretching the limits. No surprise as the players were forced to take water breaks. The whole game was at walking pace. Argentina's goal started from a superb pin-point pass from Messi which sliced through the centre. Di Maria broke through the defence in the counter-attack and intelligent stuff from him as he lobs the off the goalkeeper into the net. Because of the crazy weather, Argentina was just contented to keep the ball and park bus while the Nigerians used every ounce of their tremendous strength to break down the Argentians. In the end, Messi and Co triumph and Mascherano would definitely be delighted to have two Gold Olympics medals, one from Athens and now in Beijing.

Censored: Avril is too hot to handle!

Has Avril been too naughty lately?

Seriously, another wrong reason to put Malaysia on the world map. The government had apparently announced that the Avril Lavigne concert is canceled because it was deemed to be "inappropriate" for the Merdeka month. In short, Avril is too "sexy" to hold a concert in Malaysia. All the rest of the reasons that were given are irrelevant. As usual, they tried to defend vehemently that it has nothing to do with the recent PAS Youth lobbying for the ban. For them, there are also loads of others that had nothing to do with each other, like Saiful's personal timing of events, the DNA bill or the arrest of the Perak excos. Well, coincidence or not, it's all pointing to an event called the Permatang Pauh by-elections. If all those are "coincidence", wow..I guess Anwar and the Pakatan Rakyat fellas must have offended Lady Luck so badly that she needs to punish them. As for me, it's just a way that the current government is using the ban to show that they're good listeners to their fellow religious comrades who had just complained.

After 51 years of independence, some folks in the government think that they should be the ones who set the "moral standards" for Malaysians to follow. Aduh, Avril is one of the singers who is clad in the most mildest manner in just shirt and jeans for concert. Perhaps they get too excited seeing her "moves" in her "Girlfriend" MTV. Gwen Stefani also kena before for her attire but at least she still gets to perform after some adjustments. So, going by this kind of logic, if Avril gets banned, she's sexier than Gwen..hahahaha. Some of the ridiculous regulations include no jumping, shouting, hugging or kissing on stage and female performers had to dress from top to bottom. Ermmm..then how to have concert in the first place? Actually, I'm wondering if it was U2, Green Day, Justin Timberlake, P Diddy or Akon instead who comes to perform, would they get slapped the same way? Probably not, cos they're male.

In that case, wouldn't that move close to the notion of gender discrimination too? The PAS Youth fellas and some folks in the government who are always protesting whenever a female comes on stage to perform are seriously living in another age. It's not surprising if they end up being the same bunch of people who puts up the silly fallacy that women are asking to be raped by the way they dress or even baju kurung are also too sexy for display. Gosh, in that case, they might as well lobby that all women should have paper bags over their head or have communist-Mao uniforms so that men don't salivate the moment they see skin that is exposed by women.

I think that these fellas in the government should see the immoral behaviour that is happening at their own turf rather than picking on other things for distraction. For instance, rasuah/bribery, racist remarks at Parliament or the repeated broadcast of Saiful's 'adventures' are much more sinful than Avril shaking her butt on stage. And what effect is really achieved by banning the concert when people already had access to the Internet to watch and listen all they want? I think young people are seeing stuff that are 1000 x more harmful than the poor harmless concert music. If you wanna ban Avril or Gwen concerts and set them standards as moral corruption of the youths, then everything else in entertainment should be banned. They shouldn't waste time in sporadically picking on a few random stuff if they think they are the gatekeepers of morality.

These international artiste have decided to pick Malaysia as one of their stops and I think the government should be honoured in that it boosts the country's image as a globalized city. You won't ever see them picking Angola or Bangladesh for their stops. Sooner or later, some of them would just go to any other Southeast Asian venue other than KL. For goodness sake, Indonesia has a larger Muslim population and yet it's easier for female performers to put up a show without someone nagging down their neck about how they're dressed or what they do on stage. We do really need some forward thinking leaders in the government and educate a section of the population who gets too excited over ang mohs/mat sallehs/ Westerner's "unholy" display of the human body.

*Note at Saturday, 23/8/2008 : This morning, government says the Avril show goes on and will proceed as usual. Good for them but the reputation damage has already been done.

The snoring amplified

Oh well, I'm at Taiping now after a night bus trip. It was quite a funny experience this time round because, firstly I sat at the wrong seat. And it took the right owner of the seat to prompt me to sit behind cos I forgot that the last seat was the highest one in the bus. I then ended up sitting with an old gentleman (or to put it crudely, an old apek) but he was pretty neat though, with a formal shirt, black shoes and a suit. However, when he sleeps, it was anything but neat. It was a nightmare trying to get some sleep on board and this was possibly the worse continuous drill of snores I've ever heard in my life.

I can sleep with loud music and stuff but this kind of "pattern-like" snoring was just too distracting to my ears and was a little hilarious plus irritating at the same time. And the thing is that his snores could even compete with my music that is blasting from my MP3. So, the initial stage of trying to sleep was torturous as I really had to twist and turn around my chair with my eyes closed trying to drown out the loud snoring sound that is happening right BESIDE me. I think I got too tired at one point trying to fight off the sound that I just fell asleep...until I NEARLY missed the Kamunting bus terminal stop. Well, the apek beside me was wide awake though and I guess he must have a great time sleeping yesterday.

P.S. Hahahahaha..someone wanna kacau me yesterday... =p

Opening draw for Man Utd

Scholesey rues at yet another poor finishing in front of the goal

Manchester United could only afford a 1-1 draw against Newcastle at Old Trafford on the opening day of the 2008/2009 English Premier League season. The lack of a marksman/target-man striker for Man Utd had been the discussion of the fans lately. Tevez was supposed to guarantee to start but a last minute pull-out because of family problems meant that Man Utd virtually had no senior strikers upfront if not for the quick recovery of Wayne Rooney. So, the striking department saw partnership between Rooney and Frazier Campbell, who was handed a rare start in the first eleven.

Man Utd dominated well in terms of possession but they were not making their chances count. Newcastle made theirs count when Obafemi Martins thumped in a hard header to put the visitors ahead. Fortunately for Man Utd, Fletcher equalize immediately after that. Haha, Fletcher must be super hungry to score considering that he missed two golden chances last week. Rooney is way rusty on the ball and the funny thing is that Fletcher looked more threatening and had more chances with the ball. Campbell injects some good pace but still does not have the maturity to finish it in front of goal. However, he had one good effort early in the camp when he attempted to power in a header from Rooney's cross. It would have gone in if not for Given's lucky positioning.

The substitute bench of Fergie contained no player that could changed the course of the game. In short, it consisted of defensive midfielders and defenders..haha. The striker and injury crisis is so bad that United actually needed Evra to play as left midfielder to support Rooney. Nothing came out of it and Man Utd are left to ponder whether that was a valuable loss of two points so early in the season. Compare this to Chelsea who demolished Portsmouth 4-0. That is a confident performance from a team which is well prepared and had a bit fortune in that most of the important first eleven are free from the injury table.

Nani is sorely missed for his attacking play but not to worry, he'll be back in the next match after suspension. Berbatov is desperate to join Man Utd but Spurs remain reluctant on the transfer fees price. It remains to be seen if Fergie would make some last minute shocking transfer targets now that it is less than two weeks to the end of the transfer window.

Silver for peninsula pals

The peninsula pals tried but the backing of the home crowd and the advantage on home soil ensured that China nailed the gold medal for the men's badminton singles and women's table tennis team event. The Singapore trio could not match the China trio as they were walloped 0-3 by the hosts. But I think they'll take it anyway because they had already accomplished their mission the moment they beat South Korea in the semis. It was the case of any colour will do as long as it is a medal..lol.

For Malaysia, there's an aspiration to go higher than merely a medal in hand, it is the hunt for the first gold medal for Malaysia. It has to be said that Lin Dan is ruthless in finishing off his opponents although there are occasions where he looked to be too overconfident. Chong Wei had difficulty providing a reply and Lin Dan was like some crazy maniac doing smash after smash and Chong Wei had to defend most of the time. For the second set, Lin Dan was leading by an astounding 8-0 before Chong Wei managed to get a point. Anyways, Lin Dan just got this air of arrogance in him and I think his celebration is a bit over excessive, which involves throwing his sneakers and badminton racket to the crowd as if he's some super celebrity (maybe he is..haha).

In any case, all Malaysians is as proud as ever to congratulate Lee Chong Wei for winning the silver medal and putting Malaysia in the medals tally table. That's a massive achievement from him and a great Merdeka present for the nation! Malaysia Boleh! =)

Hitman Blood Money

Classically Executed : Agent 47 looks on coldly at his target

Hitman Blood Money is the fourth installment of the series featuring Agent 47 on his assassination contracts from an organization known as the Agency. I've just finished playing it recently and I'm quite pleased to say that I got the 'Silent Assassin' rating for all the levels except for the alcohol rehab centre. I got 'Silent Assassin' for all the levels at Hitman Contracts too but Blood Money was more challenging in that I did not rely on any clues from any websites but just play the game as it is and explore through trial and error. Warning: Spoiler's ahead in the review..

Blood Money is way much more violent and gory compared to its predecessors (except for the Meat King level in contracts). New systems of play are introduced such as distraction using coin, human shield, strangulation from elevator and customization of weapons. Blood Money seriously looks like some murder simulator, in that players had to clear up the mess, steal security tapes and study movements even more than before. There are containers available around the levels to dispose bodies but some of them are meant to distract. One vital pattern that I found out was that death by accidents caused by mines would affect rating but the discovery of the dead body does not affect rating as long as nobody witnessed the killing.

The level of detail has being increased. For instance, especially for head shots, the projectile direction of the bullet would determine which part of the head would bleed or be punctured. For instanced, if you shoot the cheek, only the cheek area will be bloodied, and for the eyes, only the socket will be affected. So, if someone is a sadistic maniac and pumps a few shots in at every part of the head, the whole face would turn into some red bloodied mess. And headshots by the shotgun would automatically turn half the face red.

The venues in Blood Money were quite a variety, although it's less so than Hitman 2. I still remember in Hitman 2 where Agent 47 actually visited the Petronas Twin Towers in Malaysia! For Blood Money, Hitman travels to South America first, then to France and the remaining ones are in America itself but in different states like Mississippi, New Orleans, Las Vegas and Washington D.C. The gameplay is very open-ended, in that it allows just so many ways for the players to choose to eliminate their target.

The storyline is really good! And I don't understand why the movie didn't adopt even half of the plot from there. The storyline basically revolves around the continued storyline that Agent 47 became so notorious that the FBI are all hot on his trail despite the public's perception that he was just some urban legend. Seems that some folks didn't like the idea that Agent 47 is a living specimen of a succesful clone. So, a government-backed organization called the Franchise set itself to eliminate the members of the Agency and in the end, only Agent 47 and his good pal Diana (the infamous briefing lady voice..haha) are left. But alas, it does seem at first that Diana betrayed 47 when she stabbed him with a fatal dose of injection at their last meeting. However, 47 (and the player) did not realise that the so-called fatal injection was meant to fake the death of Hitman (similiar to the one used to fake the death of Agent Smith in the alcohol rehab center). At the cremation/funeral ceremony of Agent 47, Diana quietly administered the antidote and departed from the area. The epilogue is just fantastic. At first it shows the rolling credits and the synonymous theme song of "Ave Maria" being played for the funeral to supposedly mark the end of Hitman. However, players are supposed to actively engage and press the forward button to revive Agent 47. So, if no action is done, Agent 47 would just be cremated and that's the ending. If 47 is revived, he goes on a killing rampage of all those that are attending the funeral and leave no witnesses alive as he escapes. And the last target that 47 encountered would most probably be the poor nosey reporter at the beginning who is desperately trying to escape the compound. Unfortunately, the gate is locked by Diana and well, it's up to the players then to decide how to finish him off, and being 47, it's probably the point-blank headshot execution style. Now, the real credits roll over with an epilogue cut-scene showing Htman (well and alive) entering into the Blue Lotus gang establishment and this promises that a sequel would be on the way.

One thing which Blood Money achieved is that it successfully tagged Schubert's "Ave Maria" to the Hitman franchise and which the movie used for its trailers too. I think it's really the song encompasses and provides the deathly, melancholic and slightly tragic anthem for the background music to represent Agent 47.

P.S. Ohhh, on the end note, I shall mention about one of the fun Easter Egg that's present in the game. By following certain instructions, players can unlock the zombie mood in the Mississippi boat level. It's kinda creepy cos it feels like Resident Evil! Pack a shotgun to get the feel of Alice..haha. And not only that, after Zombie mode is initiated, the people coming after 47 can only be put down through a headshot. Body shot would just make them lie dead for a while and like the undead, they will creepily just continue coming. I tried to survive the mass onslaught but not possible cos 47 would definitely run out of ammo and the screen lags terribly from the overwhelming amount of characters congested in one area. Here's the screenshot below to show how 47 is being "chased" by "zombies"..lol.

The day when Agent 47 becomes Alice from Resident Evil

Guaranteed Olympic Medals

Interesting times indeed for the two sports teams from the Southeast Asian Peninsula that were sent to the Beijing Olympics. I was hooked on the television watching the 2.30 pm table tennis match between Singapore and South Korea. Four years ago, I witnessed Li Jiawei crashing out in the semis against North Korea and then lost the bronze medal to South Korea in Athens. So, four years on in Beijing, Singapore had another shot to win an Olympic medal which had elude them for 47 years! The last person to win for them was a silver medal from Tan Howe Liang in 1960 for weightlifting. The event the Singapore team is competing in this afternoon was the Team Table-Tennis event. It looks kinda like a new concept to me (I may be wrong)...cos this event combines both singles and doubles together. In addition to the five sets played in one game, there are also 5 games to determine the winner. They look desperate to win this one cos in winning this, they will definitely get a silver medal at least and if they lose, their chance of getting a medal would be 50-50.

In the first game, Feng Tianwei thrashed Dang Ye Seo 3-0 to give Singapore the lead. Then, came the most anticipated match-up between Li Jiawei and her nemesis, Kim Kyung Ah who had beaten her for the bronze in Athens. This was seriously a crazy match! Both women were head to head on each other's toes and they were bouncing off balls each other for long period of times. Not only that, every move from the dictionary of ping pong was thrashed out. It's really fantastic stuff even for a neutral like me to watch the sport. Kim played some kind of unorthodox style in that she creates big bounces and in some way, it's irritating. The game went on for an astounding 56 minutes with the full 5 sets played. In the end, Kim got the better of Li. But for the doubles, Li and her partner Wang swept Kim and her partner away 3-0. Well, the contest would have wrap up if Wang had won her singles match against Dang but nopes, Dang looked like a different player that was just thrashed by Feng. It was close but Dang won 3-0 to force the 5th match to be played between Feng and Park. Feng looked much shakier compared to her stance in the first match and Park is very feisty in that she refuses to back down and fought furiously for every point. It was tight but in the end, it was history in the making when Park made a mistake at game point to send Singapore into the finals and in the process guaranteeing them at least a Silver medal finish. The total match time was calculated to be 3 hrs 13 minutes! Fascinating match indeed where both teams fought head to head to death.

Woah, watching this table tennis match made me realise that the psychological aspect in sports is very important besides physical attributes. Especially in this fast paced game of table tennis, it's definitely pressuring when the player is on a losing streak or in Feng's case, the fate of the entire team is on her shoulders. That's where the coaches come in to motivate the players. Same like in football where the 15 minutes half time break is so crucial in that it can either break or make a team and it is up to coach to be psychologically smart to get the best out of his players. Not only that, the shouts and gestures of the players could give effect to either intimidate the opponents or boost confidence of oneself as exhibited in the ping pong match too. In football, the player goal celebrations just put some shitty feeling to the opponent while in rugby, the All Blacks do the Haka war cry before their matches.

It's a jubilant and glorious moment for Malaysia too as Lee Chong Wei beats Lee Hyub-il in the Semis to secure a delicious match-up against Lin Dan in the Finals. Malaysia too is guaranteed at least a Silver medal finish. Unlike Singapore, Malaysia broke her Olympic medals duck in Barcelona 1992. From 1956 to 1988, Malaysia had no Olympic medals. The Sidek brothers (Rashid and Jalani) won Malaysia's first Olympic medal when they secured a bronze in the badminton doubles. In Atlanta 1996, Cheah Soon Kit and Yap Kim Hock won the silver for Malaysia in the badminton doubles. Rashid Sidek took the bronze in that year too for the men's singles. Lee would be looking forward to win Malaysia's first ever Olympic gold medal but it won't be easy with the home crowd backing Lin Dan. Lee had done very well indeed considering he was under immense pressure in the semis to perform since he was the only Malaysian representative left in the badminton event to achieve an Olympic medal.

As I mentioned, it's interesting in that both Southeast Asian Peninsula buddies would be facing the mighty China players that were backed by the home crowd and both are also playing on Sunday. Now, it remains to be seen if they can break the odds.

Efficient bus trip

Wow..I didn't really expect stuff to go so efficient for my "tour" bus. Eric and me went as usual taking the green bus to KTM Nilai and then to Seremban. Ohhh, and it is so convenient to travel from KTM Seremban to the Seremban bus terminal, courtesy of the new covered walkway and tunnel. So, there's no need to jaywalk and cross the crazy busy streets of Seremban. And THAT is how and what the BN government should spend their millions of ringgit on and NOT on new Mercedes cars for overfed exco members.

Both of us went to get the bus ticket from Plusliner since that's like the best and most reliable service in the bus terminal. The price is kinda good, only RM19.80 =p. We reached there about 11.20 am and we're pleased to get the 12.30pm bus. While waiting, we eat and chatted at Dunkin Doughnuts. Woah, I'm impressed that Eric has quite a good knowledge on his favourite football club, Arsenal. FINALLY, I've found someone with a decent amount of football knowledge in the law faculty =p.

The Plusliner bus is actually good, clean and well-maintained for a 40 seater bus. It's kinda squeezy compared to the regular Grassland buses but still, it's comfortable. And it's very fast and doesn't waste time stopping in Yong Peng for the bus driver to makan. Within 3.5 hrs, we're already at Johor Bahru. And we reached the checkpoint at a time when there's no crazy crowd to fight with and the MRT ride was also comfortable with no balik rumah gang.

Nice to have a homely environment after so long staying in hostel. Most importantly, I get access to a refrigerator..haha. Ohhh, juz now I was also watching the channel 8 dramas at 7pm and 9pm. It's Felicia Chin gracing the screens once again at 7pm and I'm surprised to see Fann Wong reprising her role as a schizophrenic character again at the 9pm show. She's gonna be a master at portraying characters with mental cases..haha.

Anyways, woot! I get to have the chance to cook stuff for myself to eat..haha. Stan will cook for food and have unlimited supplies of iced drinks to enjoy these few days!! =)

Slacking Period

Oh well, I'll begin my "tour" for my slacking period of 2.5 weeks tomorrow. I'm feeling quite tired now because I spent half the day in clearing and cleaning my hostel room..haha. Other than that, I also need to consider what stuff I'm going to bring, especially which law books. I'll most probably be bringing those that are small and light books which covers the main points and some of the subjects would just be paper notes. If I were to bring the detailed textbooks, I'm going to have trouble bringing them back and forth around. With the guitar still needed to be transported, I had to really limit what I'm putting in my bags..haha.

I have a feeling I'm going to miss *someone* a lot during these two weeks..haha.

FA Community Shield 2008

Back-in-action Captain Gary lifts the Community Shield for Man Utd

The new competitive season for English top division clubs kicks off with the community shield between Premier League champions Manchester United and FA Cup Winners Portsmouth. Man Utd are without terror duo Rooney and Ronaldo. Saha is out injured (once again) and so, the only striker up front is Carlos Tevez. I'm kinda pleased with Man Utd's general control of the game. The defence is kept tight nicely and the passing and game reading was kinda good. The dominant style which United used during the game had been running onto space and getting the short burst of speeds upfront when needed.

Ryan Giggs operates as the ghost striker and occassionally switches the role with Nani. So, on the left wing, they are 3 lanes in operation - Giggs, Nani and Evra. This kinda makes the left wing quite congested..lol. Nani played superbly well, a big improvement when he first started out last season. His dribbling skills and ball control were well done and he links up nicely with Giggs. He literally danced around the Portsmouth box and there's a couple of times when he made Glen Johnson tangled and slip on his own foot..lol. Tevez looks sharp on the ball and he made a few good runs past the defences. Tevez did everything right as a supporting striker but I can't help feeling that Man Utd desperately needs a striker who is a marksman that is specialised in sniping balls into the net. Berbatov or Huntelaar would fit in the role nicely. Other than that, it's nice to see Captain Gary Neville back into the squad. The fans truly missed his presence in the squad and his dynamism on the field. The defence looks very assuring now and it's pleasant to watch Neville running down the right flank to support attacking play or challenge the attackers.

The match ended 0-0 and had to have a penalty shootout to decide the outcome. Lol, TG guessed it correctly that it would go to penalties while I actually predicted a 1-0 win for United.Portsmouth would have conceded a couple of time if not for some Lady Luck on their side. Funnily, Fletcher nearly become a double-goal hero. He had one clear chance to whack it into an open goal but he chose to pass it coz he thought he was offside. The other time was that his volley juz bounced off the crossbar. Anyways, David James is totally wicked in front of the goal. Time after time, he make excellent saves and denied United the chance to score. However, Portsmouth really ain't helping themselves in the penalty shootout. They are ultimate noobs in penalties! They had 2 people MISSING from the spot and not even testing the keeper. And 1 of them got saved brilliantly by van der Sar. Man Utd converted all their chances and even David James is powerless to stop penalties.

It's a wonderful start for Man Utd to get their first silverware of the season. Haha, there's a weird rumour circulating around the news that Fergie may be thinking of buying Thierry Henry. That'll be the shock of the century if that does happen. But in football, you'll never know...haha. Afterall, the Man Utd no. 14 shirt is still vacant and empty. =p

08/08/08

Yesterday's Beijing 2008 Olympics opening ceremony was superb. The Inti China student's association organised the screening to be held in two lecture halls. At first quite messy because they assumed that CCTV would be screening but that was not the case. In addition to that, the Astro dish in the lecture hall is not subscribed to Supersport. Guess who came to the rescue - it's RTM 1! This one really Malaysia Boleh..lol! When Astro's not working, there's always good old TV1 to depend on. =p About a quarter had actually left while the China students were busy fiddling with the channels. But anyways, I was part of the three quarters that stay to watch the opening ceremony at TV1. Lol, the Digi advertisements that were spammed in TV1 were quite funny and creative.

The performances and shows during the opening ceremony were something of a gigantic massive scale. All of them were colourful and some of them were really beyond the audiences' wildest imagination when they think about the scale of creativity that is involved. My favourite part of the Olympics has always been to watch the part where the different countries march past the stadium crowd. The costumes that were worn by some of them were certainly very interesting and colourful..lol. Not only that, a portion of them also tend to syiok sendiri or zhi high and they started dancing or making funny faces at the camera. Got lots of pretty gals that are flashed on the screen, cos some of the atheletes really look great (and exotic..haha) while excelling at their sports and not to forget the background China cheerleaders (or dancers?). I wonder how they keep on doing the same action for 2 hrs and kept the same smile on. The music alternates between 3 types - the backpipes "Scotland the Brave", some well-known Chinese folk songs and then the African drums. Interestingly, the lecture hall did cheer at various countries that marched in. Taiwan is not one of them..lol. BUT Hong Kong was the first to receive the cheer from the China students..haha. Heres the list - Hong Kong, Malaysia (of course), Canada, USA, Australia, Singapore, UK, Spain and China. Quite a peculiar list and I leave it to the readers' opinion on why the lecture hall cheer at this set of countries..haha.

The other part I'm looking forward to is the lighting of the giant torch. Beijing does it uniquely from the rest of the other hosts. This time, they had an old apek suspended in mid-air and air running around the stadium at a height of about 20 storeys high!! When he reached his destination and lighted the fuse, the gigantic torch erupted into a giant ball of flame. And the fireworks pyrotechnics were awesome too! It's a wonderful sight to see. Now, let the Games begin!

Short Break Coming

This week is the last week for Semester 1. My classmates and I are a fortunate bunch since we don't have exams this semester. So, instead of having 2 weeks of holidays, we have 3 weeks. Wait till Semester 2 comes, I'm sure all of us will get "retribution" for being slack this semester..haha. There are still stuff to be concluded for Semester 1 though, like on Friday, there's gonna be an open book test on offer and acceptance for contract law and on Saturday, it's the Malaysian studies exam.

Hmm..for the semester break, I'll spend a few days in Singapore to visit mama while the majority of the time I'll be at Taiping. That's cos I'll be bored to death in Singapore since most of my friends are in the army anyways. The only thing in Singapore that keeps me entertained is the super speed Internet and my drums. Mama and my bro would be busy with the normal schooldays. The Internet may not be so fast in Taiping, but at least I have Astro to watch history documentaries or get my dose of football action..haha. Not only that, if it's possible, I see whether I got enough time to proceed with my driving course. I think I'll most probably be heading to Singapore with Eric only on next Wednesday since I wanna spend some time clearing my hostel room and do some planning.

Btw, I added a games profiling application in Facebook and I realised that I spend more time watching TV, playing PC games, reading entertainment/football magazines and surfing the Internet compared to reading books or novels in my teenage years. People think that a lot of the knowledge and language skills I have come from books but that's so not true all the time. It's more like I "skim" through books rather than read them. Gosh, I had like 53 PC+Xbox games played (that's not even all) vs. 13 novels that I completed reading (which I can recall). Very often, I read books because I needed to research or study but other than that, I won't even read books for fun. Actually, I prefer books that are historical with lots of photographs and I read them more than typical novels. For me to sit down and read a book with loads of words and no illustration, I kinda need some inspiration (like some interesting philosophical concepts). And I take very long to finish one (so no Harry Potter please). But I thank God in giving me a gift in that when I read a book, those information that I gather don't really vanish but are retained in my memory for very long time..haha. I sometimes do wonder how come I'm so informed and knowledgeable about so many things eventhough I don't read much books. =p

Passion World Tour Kuala Lumpur

I was out the whole day yesterday, a blessed day I would say..haha. I went to church in the morning first and then when I reached back to Inti, I rested in my room for around 30 minutes before heading to the bus-stop to take the bus for the event in the evening : Passion World Tour - Kuala Lumpur. Inti Christian Fellowship booked one entire bus and had it fully filled for the event! (thanks to Eric..lol) Passion is originally a Christian conference/rock music event in the US for university students headed by Louie Giglio . In 2008, they are currently having a world tour of 17 cities in 6 continents. Several Christian rock band groups like Chris Tomlin and Charlie Hall are touring together around the world with Louie. You can check out their website at www.268generation.com. The verse theme of Passion is taken from Isaiah 26:8, hence 268.

Anyways, Passion KL is held in Sunway Convention Centre and we had to start moving from Nilai at 2.15 pm for a 6pm event cos of the distance and we also need to be early to queue up. At first I thought it was too early but woah, the place was fully packed already at the entrance. All 6000 tickets for the events were fully snapped up. And imagined almost 6000 of them are crammed outside at the door waiting for it to open. Quite stuffy at the front of the row of the waiting line but it was worth it in the end when I managed to get a seat in the center first front rows. I had a nice clear view of the musicians!

It was truly an awesome night with all the young people jumping, dancing and praising God. Chris Tomlin is a rocker for Christ! Everyone in the hall were feeling really high..haha. Charlie Hall has a great voice too and his janggut (beard) is most peculiar..lol. His band had lots of older fellas in them. I'm really inspired by the message given by Louie. He's really someone who can connect to young people..haha. Hopefully Passion would inspire Malaysian youths to rise up and do great things for God.

Ohh..and I'm glad that I had a digital camera which was capable to record a few snippets minute moments of the concert and loads of nice pictures of the musicians up close. Haha, now I going gaga over Chris Tomlin's "Sing, sing, sing". In any case, thank you Lord for bringing the Passion band to KL as one of their destinations. And God bless them for Passion Jakarta which is happening on 5th August tommorow :)

The Dark Knight

Wanna know how I got these scars? My father was....a drinker. And a fiend. And one night he goes off crazier than usual. Mommy gets the kitchen knife to defend herself. He doesn't like that. Not. One. Bit. So, me watching, he takes the knife to her, laughing while he does it. Turns to me and he says "Why so serious?" Comes at me with the knife,"Why so serious?" He sticks the blade in my mouth. "Let’s put a smile on that face!"

There's so much of ideas and words that flashed in my head when I watched The Dark Knight. It's like Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby where every word that is uttered carries a whole load of weight behind it. I've never watched a movie that made me think so much after the Matrix! Lol, the philosophical and literature concepts in there is just overwhelming. Once again, Stan wants to put up a WARNING sign that there are SPOILERS ahead!

The movie starts off with a bank robbery and I got a tickle when I saw who was casted as the Gotham Bank Manager. It was Alex Mahone from Prison Break! Lol!! And he scares the pants out of all the robbers when he blasted a couple of them with his shotgun. That is until The Joker makes an appearance and left him with the words "I believe whatever doesn't kill you simply makes you... stranger."

The character at the center-stage of the movie is undeniably the Joker. The Batman had to take the back seat for this one. Heath Ledger's death may had played some part in propelling the film and character to global fame but the thing is, Heath is simply phenomenal in the role. His portrayal of the Joker embodies an individual being who's psychotic, erratic and ruthless. The imagery conjured into the audience mind is one which is terrifying the mind. Heath brought out the essence of the Joker, something which previous adaptations or even the animated series had not done as well as him. The Joker could literally have an entire section of monologues by himself because his quotes are just so profound. "Malicious silliness" and "saddistic humour" would be some of the tags that I'll put on the Joker. He's the anti-thesis of Batman, the very opposite what the Dark Knight represented and stands for.

The Joker is not a mere ordinary lunatic. He represented a higher form of destruction where he destroys for the thrill of it. He regards himself as an agent of chaos and the eerie thing is that he's willing to even become a martyr to usher in anarchy into the world. He has a taste for pure nihilism and as he puts it," It's not about money... it's about... sending a message. Everything burns." Interestingly, the Joker orchestrated a real-life Prisoners' Dilemma using two ferries where one contained a group of thugs while the other are ordinary folks. Lots of ethical questions are raised around here. The end result was that none of them pressed the button. I think in the real world, I'm sure there are definitely people who are willing to press the button.

The Batman is an interesting superhero which stands out from the rest. Unlike Superman, Spiderman or the X-Men, Batman does not possess any sort of superhuman powers. He's a mortal that is equipped with lots of cool gadgets but he's essentially vulnerable to death and emotional or psychological wounding just like any other man. In the Justice League, Batman stands out among the other members and the exco as someone who's rather difficult to work with, low sense of humour and a very emo person because of the dark experiences that he went through. In any case, Bale does well in the movie too as Batman, continuing the good work which he had in Batman Begins.

The "White Knight" of Gotham is Harvey Dent and the Joker is totally obsessed in demonstrating that he is capable of turning the best of men into a villainous character. And he succeeded in making Dent descend into madness and transforming him into Two-Face after the death of Rachel Dawes. I like this portrayal of Two-Face as compared to the one in Batman Forever which is played by Tommy Lee Jones. In Batman Forever, he's just shown to be a bad ass with no introduction that Two Face was once a defender of justice. The corruption initiated by the Joker in the Dark Knight is not the first because in the Batman animated series, he was also responsible in turning Detective Ethan Bennett into Clayface.

Despite the fact that both Batman and the Joker are nemesis to each other, both are not willing to deal the killing blow. For Joker, the end of Batman would mean the end of thrills for him while Batman's philosophy has always been never to murder criminals but to hand them over to the police. So, as the Joker had already mentioned, they can do the cat-and-mouse game virtually forever..lol.

The Dark Knight is a truly superb movie that lives up to all the hype surrounding it. The Joker was the last act by Heath Ledger and it was a befitting farewell. Take a bow, Heath Ledger. A magnificent performance before the curtains come down. It would definitely be very hard to find a replacement if they do want to have a sequel in the future. With that said, I would definitely look forward in getting the Dark Knight DVD in the future :)